


Say Something

by xikra1648



Series: Life's Playlist [1]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: 1940s, Action, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Dancing, Drama, F/M, How Do I Tag, I Don't Even Know, Inspired by Music, Modern Era, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Other additional characters to be added, Partner Betrayal, Romance, Smut, Song Lyrics, What Was I Thinking?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-11
Updated: 2017-08-29
Packaged: 2018-07-23 01:25:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 37
Words: 43,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7461144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xikra1648/pseuds/xikra1648
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once in a decade there were soulmates with a connection so strong that time and death couldn’t keep them apart forever.  Their life literally depended on each other, if one died the other died with them, if one aged the other aged with them.  It was a very special bond, one that would stand the test of time.  The thing was, it was rarely ever tested, in fact it had never been tested.  As far as the world knew, this kind of connection was nothing but a legend, a romantic story put in movies and it wouldn’t be discovered as anything more than that until the mid-1990’s.  One thing was always the same with connections such as these, the marks shared by these soulmates always included the symbol of eternity, though never had there been a mark that was simply the symbol of eternity-not that anybody knew of.  Truth was, there was one woman born with it who didn’t find her match until she was 95 years old.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I'm Giving Up On You

**Author's Note:**

> Quick note to start off with, a lot of the chapters will be inspired by songs and if it's appropriate I'll put the name of the song that inspired it in the beginning. In this case it's 'Say Something' by A Great Big World and covered by pretty much everyone in the world, my personal favorite is MAX and Victoria Justice's cover but Pentatonix does a bitchin' job too (as always).
> 
> Second, there are a lot more notes at the end.

# Chapter One

### I'm Giving Up On You

Once in a decade there were soulmates with a connection so strong that time and death couldn’t keep them apart forever. Their life literally depended on each other, if one died the other died with them, if one aged the other aged with them. It was a very special bond, one that would stand the test of time. The thing was, it was rarely ever tested, in fact it had never been tested. As far as the world knew, this kind of connection was nothing but a legend, a romantic story put in movies and it wouldn’t be discovered as anything more than that until the mid-1990’s. One thing was always the same with connections such as these, the marks shared by these soulmates always included the symbol of eternity, though never had there been a mark that was simply the symbol of eternity-not that anybody knew of. Truth was, there was one woman born with it who didn’t find her match until she was 95 years old.

Esmeralda wasn’t ugly, she was actually quite beautiful and very fit, only fitting considering she worked for the SSR. She wasn’t, however, the most fashionable woman and while a man might talk to her, the second her personality made its ugly way out of her mouth the poor man couldn’t run away fast enough, assuming he didn’t have any problems with flirting with a girl from Portugal. It could have been worse, much worse, but back in the 40’s ‘exotic’ wasn’t the popular look, her skin was just a little too tan, her pink lips were just a little too full, her long light brown hair was a little too thick and unruly, and her gray-green eyes weren’t blue enough, and her thick eyebrows needed too much grooming in the morning. To top it off she wasn’t lady-like at all, she would shoot whiskey with the guys, and her accuracy with a gun and throwing knives had actually been used to kill people.

She hated going out with the girls. They always wanted to go out dancing right after work and Esmeralda was one of the few female SSR agents who were actually put into the field-leaving her dirty, sometimes bloody, and always wearing pants and a blouse that she would have to replace. She had to rush home, shower, change, and hope she was dry by the time she got to the club. She almost never was, she would always have to duck into an ally and use a quick spell to dry her hair before joining her friends inside-late as always.

They would tease her for being late, she would refrain from telling them she’d like to see them get shot and then go out dancing less than an hour later, then her friends would be asked to dance and she’d be left alone at the table and then eventually make her way over to the bar. She wasn’t sulking, for the most part she was just recovering from a busy day at work. Some days she was so achy that she prayed nobody would ask her to dance. One night she still had a bullet lodged in her shoulder and had to wear a red dress and a black blazer in case she started bleeding again.

She thought she knew that one day a guy would come along and ask her to dance, or at least take an interest in her. She had a mark under her right breast that stretched from her side to the center of her ribcage, though it was far more simple than any other symbol her friends had. It wasn’t an ornate snowflake, or her soulmate’s first words, the name of her soulmate, or even a nickname she would call him. It was just the number ‘8’ on its side-more commonly known as the symbol of eternity.

It was ironic, to her, especially in the years and decades to come the symbol to her would come to symbolize an eternity alone, one which she was prepared to live at that point. She knew, though, she knew if he ever came along she would follow him to the end of eternity, when she loved she loved deeply, deep down to her very core. But she had been living more than a lifetime without him…

And she had given up…

She said goodbye before she ever met him and that had consequences.

She might still be breathing, but she was just as cold and dead as Romeo and Juliet.


	2. Sea of Lovers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At first sight Bucky was nothing but enchanted by the green-eyed SSR agent, she just had to be his soulmate. They were going to survive the war and live that cliche happily ever after life everyone was always talking about.
> 
> Right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was listening to Sea of Lovers by Christina Perri repeatedly while I was writing this. You don't have to listen to the song, the story makes perfect sense without it, but it sets the mood I was in. Up until the end, things get angsty at the end.

# Chapter Two

### Sea of Lovers

SSR Agent Esmeralda Faria had met Captain America and the Howling Commandos once. She wasn’t even supposed to meet them, they just happened to be taking a break at the nearby bar that Esmeralda stopped at after giving her report to Colonel Phillips and picking up the coordinates and list of Hydra bases she was going to investigate. Captain America and the Howling Commandos could attack all the Hydra bases they wanted but without good intelligence they’d be walking to their death-or in their case running. Somebody had to get the intel and who better than an Assassin that grew up picking pockets and locks in broad daylight so her parents could make rent?

The beautiful thing about working in a warzone was that nobody gave a damn about your race or gender. As long as you were on the same side of the war and didn’t throw a grenade at their face people liked you. Best of all, Esmeralda didn’t have to deal with the girls back home and could drink all the double shots of whiskey she wanted. Her black Mary-Jane heels clicked on the wood floors of the bar but it couldn’t be heard over the commotion that died down when she walked in. She really wished she hadn’t dressed up to go to the bar, but it was a habit she couldn’t seem to break.

Her black sweetheart dress clung to her thin waist and accented her plush bust while it flowed freely around her dancer’s legs down to her knees. Her long brown hair was up in a ponytail with a deep blue Cattleya blossom tucked into it-Peggy’s idea. Where the hell was Peggy anyway? She said she was coming along but naturally she was staying behind to work. Even if Peg didn’t show, Esmeralda was going to tell her fellow agent that Captain Rogers asked where she was.  Maybe that would move things along.

Esmeralda wasn’t used to all the attention she was getting, specifically because it was positive, but she was one of four women in the bar and the other three were waitresses and the old woman that owned the bar. She made a beeline to the bar and ordered a double shot of whiskey, not noticing the ice blue eyes that couldn’t seem to look away.

For a second Bucky thought she looked so beautiful because he’d been stuck in a war for so long, but that only lasted a second, probably even less than that. God she was beautiful, her tanned skin looked so soft, her gray-green eyes could simultaneously pierce through him and sooth his soul, and those lips-god he would love nothing more than to kiss her breathless. Bucky faintly heard Steve asking something, or maybe it was Trip, Bucky wasn’t paying the guys any attention. He just gave a noncommittal ‘yeah, sure,’ in response, never looking away from the dame at the bar. He was so entirely focused on the young woman at the bar. He got up, leaving his jacket behind at the table, and made his way to the bar. The guys looked his way and laughed, they should have figured he had ditched them for a dame.

Steve didn’t say anything at the time, but this time was different. Bucky had a way with girls, hell even Howard Stark admitted he had nothing on Bucky when it came to charming women, but never had Steve seen Bucky drawn to a girl like this. The way he laughed and rubbed the back of his neck as he chuckled to cover his nerves. The fact that he couldn’t look away from the woman’s eyes and hadn’t rushed her to the dance floor but instead stood at the bar talking to her. Just the way Bucky had simply walked away from the table without a word was different.

“We’ve been talking for an hour and I don’t even know your name,” Bucky brought up, “but you seem to know mine.”

“I work for the SSR, I’m the one that goes out and gets all that intel on Hydra bases that magically pops up so you guys don’t run out to your deaths,” Essie replied, proudly but still teasing the soldier. She felt comfortable with him, safe, she could stare into those pale blue eyes for hours and the way that beautiful smile of his was contagious. It didn’t hurt that he was tall, dark, and handsome to boot. She had a type. Still, she had a job and she had to stay detached. The chances one or both of them would die were far too high in their line of work. Maybe after the war, if they both lived, but tonight would just have to remain a fond memory of the night she talked and danced with the American Hero, Sergeant Bucky Barnes.

“That’s you? That’s…I’m sorry doll, impressive just doesn’t seem to cut it,” Bucky wasn’t lying. It would be impressive for an experience soldier to be part of the team that spies on Hydra bases but to be a lone young woman…that was really impressive. However, that was not the answer to Bucky’s unspoken question.

“I can’t help but notice you didn’t answer my question.”

“That’s because you didn’t ask one.”

She was a cheeky little thing, wasn’t she?

“What’s your name?”

Esmeralda sighed and pursed her lips before looking back at Bucky and suggesting, “How about this? You promise to survive this war and at the end, when we get home, I’ll tell you my name.”

“Alright, beautiful, you have yourself a deal,” Bucky accepted, “But I still want that dance you promised me.”

Esmeralda just smiled and took Bucky’s hand before pulling him out to an open spot on the floor by the piano. It was getting late and the bar was starting to clear out, even most of the Howling Commandos had left for the night. Steve was the last, conscious, member of the team left-excluding Bucky. As he carried Duncan out of the bar he saw the sergeant dancing with the girl that had stolen his heart without uttering a word and smirked at his friend, nodding in approval-earning a glare from Bucky as he changed the steps of the dance to keep the girl in his arms from seeing the look his friend was giving him. Suddenly he knew what it was like to be in Steve’s shoes. He was gonna’ punch the little punk when he got back to the barracks.

Steve was quickly forgotten as the night went on and the songs slowed down until they were the only ones left in the bar, swaying back and forth as Bucky kept his hand on the young woman’s waist, firm but gentle, and relished in the feel of her delicate hand in his own and her other hand on his shoulder. He nuzzled into her hair when she rested her head on his chest, just high enough to nuzzle into his neck, and they just swayed back and forth. Bucky silently prayed that they could stay like that forever, or at least until the war ended, but it just wasn’t meant to be. Esmeralda had noticed, through her bliss, that it was late and she had to leave. She gently pulled away, and as much as Bucky wanted to hold her there he loosened his hold on her. She pulled her hand away from his and gently placed both her hands at the top of the soldier’s neck, to play with his soft dark locks and pull him down for one single kiss that would haunt his memory for decades. Bucky placed his free hand on the woman’s waist and relished in the kiss as long as he could, before she pulled away and walked out of the bar.

Bucky wasn't one for making plans, he mostly just took things day by day and made it up as he went along, but as he left he was planning his next meeting with the woman.  He was trying to figure out what her name would be even though he didn’t have the slightest hit. That was the girl he was going to spend the rest of his life with, the woman he would love until the end of his days, he just _knew_ it. He hadn’t seen her mark but it had to match his, just kissing her was too perfect for her not to be his soulmate. _She_ was too perfect. He went back to the barracks, fully expecting to survive the war, and to his defense in a way he did.

But it was _nothing_ like what he had planned.


	3. Can't Remember To Forget You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Decades later, Esmeralda is still a field agent-that happens when you're a 90-year-old in the body of a 20-year-old. She's long since let go of her soulmate, he was probably long dead by then, and given up on the idea of sharing her life with someone and settled for casual sex with an agent she commonly works with-Agent Grant Ward.
> 
> She knows Ward has secrets, every agent does, but what she didn't know was one of his many secrets involves her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I listened to 'Can't Remember To Forget You' by Shakira ft. Rihanna a lot while writing this. I feel like it captures the relationship pretty well from both sides, but in very different ways.
> 
> I've written smut before but this is honestly the first time I've ever posted smut so constructive criticism (while awkward to write, I know) would be nice. I was trying to make things quick and dirty and trying to portray Ward's...we'll call them issues but I'm afraid I just made him come off like a perv.

# Chapter Three

### Can't Remember To Forget You

Agent Esmeralda Faria was by far S.H.I.E.L.D’s most experienced agent, it wasn’t a surprise she had Level 9 clearance. It wasn’t a surprise that she was sent on countless suicide missions, hell she volunteered for a lot of them. Director Carter always said Agent Faria was far too reckless with her own safety, but Director Carter wasn’t the 40-year-old woman with the body of a 24-year-old woman in the 60’s.

Still, being what she was her name was at the top of the Avengers Initiative. She had more experience than any living agent and was still fit for field work, being a 91-year-old woman in the body of a 25-year-old woman when Loki attacked the Earth. She left her partner, Agent Grant Ward, behind to join the Avengers. He took it well when she told him, considering Maria called Esmeralda just as she and Grant were kissing and stripping their way into Esmeralda’s D.C. apartment overlooking the Potomac.

_“Fury is calling the Avenger’s Initiative. You are to report to the Helicarrier within two hours.”_

Maria always did leave things short.

“I’m on my way,” Esmeralda replied shortly before hanging up. Esmeralda gave one look at Grant’s washboard abs and threw her head back in a groan. Fucking seriously Fury? What was it with S.H.I.E.L.D Directors and always needing her? Sure, in the beginning she was the only field agent capable of pulling off the impossible that Peggy could trust but now that S.H.I.E.L.D was as big as it was this was getting absolutely ridiculous. The girl just wanted to get laid and there was a delicious hunk of a man sitting half-naked on her couch literally _waiting_ for her so they could get hot and heavy in her apartment.

Probably not the most popular reaction to being called into action as an Avenger, but to her defense Essie worked with a married couple that literally _shrunk_ themselves back in the 80’s. On that note she should probably call and check up on Hank when the world isn’t in a stage of crisis anymore.  Again, not the most usual reaction to a potentially world-ending crisis but after working for the SSR and then S.H.I.E.L.D for almost 80 years, Agent Esmeralda Faria had pretty much seen it all-or so she thought.

“Another mission?” Grant asked, his arms crossed over his firm chest, distracting Essie’s wandering mind which was too focused on the need to leave hickeys all over Grant’s chest.

“Fury’s activating the Avengers Initiative, I have to be at the Helicarrier in two hours,” Esmeralda answered as she straddled Grant’s lap and kissed her partner as he placed his hands at the bottom of her thin waist before sliding down her hips to rest at the back of her thighs. That was probably the first thing he noticed about her, her dancer’s legs that had snapped many a man’s neck. Essie’s long light-brown hair fell over her shoulder and brushed lightly against Grant’s shoulder and chest as she kissed him again with those plump pink lips. God the things she could do with that mouth of hers, they were downright sinful.

“So you’ve got, what, half an hour?” Grant asked between kisses, though it was more of a statement than a question. He knew she wasn’t going to take off right away just because she was ordered to. If push came to shove she’d grab a jet from the Triskelion and fly to the Helicarrier.

“That sounds about right,” Essie replied between kisses, “Enough time for a quickie before I gotta shower and get going.”

Quickie? So she was planning on being almost on time. That was fine with him, the sooner he reported to Garrett the better. Agent Faria was possibly S.H.I.E.L.D’s best weapon against Hydra and if they weren’t careful it would be easy for her to spot them, and one quick text would tip off Fury, Maria Hill, and the World Council. Esmeralda was in a very unique position which gave her a very unique amount of power and influence, power and influence she never seemed to use but she was still dangerous.

Grant grabbed Essie by her thighs, holding tightly as he stood up and carried her through the living room and through the double doors to her bedroom and her plush king-sized bed. Essie locked her ankles just below Grant’s ass and ran her hands through his hair roughly as they kissed furiously, only pulling away for quick nips on each other’s lips and necks before reconnecting their lips. Grant kneeled on the bed before falling forward to pin Essie on the bed, making her lie on her back and unwrap her legs from his waist as he quickly unfastened the button and zipper of her skinny jeans before pulling them off with her blue lace thong, leaving her only in her matching bra.

Esmeralda bit her lip and let out a sound that could only be accurately be described as a _purr_ when Grant attached his mouth directly to Esmeralda’s clit. He wasn’t wasting time toying with her, like she said it was a quickie. He licked and sucked directly at her clit as he pushed one and then two fingers into her core, finding her G-spot instantly. He toyed with her until she was close and then pulled away, sliding up Essie’s body and kissed her deeply. Essie tasted herself on Grant’s mouth as her nimble fingers quickly unbuttoned and unzipped his own jeans, pushing them down far enough to free his hard cock. Grant would have loved to see Essie’s plump pink lips wrapped around him, just the thought was enough to get him hard in seconds, but they didn’t have time. He aimed the head of his hard member at Essie’s hot, tight core and slipped in-pounding away at her g-spot.

It was hard and fast, just the way Esmeralda liked it. She wrapped her long legs around Grant’s waist again, locking her ankles behind his ass as she scratched at Grant’s biceps as she cried out and threw her head back as the sparks went off behind her eyes. As she clenched down around him it only brought Grant closer to the edge and, with the image of Essie on her knees in front of him and her lips wrapped around him playing in his mind, he found his own release.

Esmeralda only took a few minutes to catch her breath before getting up, showering, and changing into a clean pair of skinny-jeans, a white tank-top, and a blue flannel button-up. She slipped on her old black combat boots before throwing her work suit, even though she rarely ever wore it anymore, into a black duffel bag where she kept guns, spare ammo, and knives ready to go at a moment’s notice. As she left Grant was getting dressed to leave himself, and she didn’t feel the need to say goodbye. They weren’t one for attachments.

Grant was a special case when it came to soul marks, he didn’t have one. It was for the best, considering his occupation, and Esmeralda didn’t have to feel guilty about ‘stealing’ him from anyone. The woman had accepted the fact that her soulmate was probably long gone and with her career a real relationship would only hold her back anyway. Sure, she cared about Grant the way any agent does with their partner, but it didn’t go beyond that and casual sex-at least it didn’t for her.

She was the enemy and Grant had to be prepared to take Esmeralda out at a moment’s notice, but he would rather he didn’t have to. If he had a choice, if she became a problem, he would much rather keep her locked away where he could _play_ whenever he wanted to. But, he supposed, if it came down to it he could kill her too. If he couldn’t have her, nobody could.


	4. F**kin Perfect

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things come to a head when Esmeralda joins the Avengers, and yet fighting an army of aliens led by a crazy Asgardian wasn't what turned the life of S.H.I.E.L.D's oldest agent sideways and inside-out. It was what she learned as a result.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it seems like things were slow and then suddenly everything picks up, but I promise this isn't the climax. This was just a chapter with some background information that I had to get out before Essie and Bucky could meet again.
> 
> The title is both ironic, it fits at the end, and the title of the song I was listening to when I wrote it. F**kin Perfect by Pink, I would have to say, is one of the songs I was listening to when I came up with Esmeralda so it was inevitable that I use it for one of the chapters.

# Chapter Four

### F**kin Perfect

Esmeralda got to the Helicarrier just within two hours, which caught Director Fury by surprise. It was a pleasant surprise, but still a surprise. She dumped her bag in the armory set aside for the Avengers, and featured Captain America’s new suit like it was on display-no doubt Coulson’s idea. The Captain America super fan didn’t know that Esmeralda had actually net Captain America once, during the final attack on Hydra, and Essie planned to keep it that way.

Apparently the Captain’s memory was better than she expected.

“Agent Faria?” Steve’s brow furrowed in confusion. He heard rumors that a World War II vet was still working with S.H.I.E.L.D but he hadn’t expected them to look so…young. What’s more, he remembered the girl. That was the girl, _the_ girl Bucky was so head over heels about.

“Wow, I’m both impressed and honored that you remember me,” Essie teased, shaking the Captain’s hand, “Before you ask, no, we have no idea how I’m still alive or how I’ve only aged a few years in roughly 7 decades. I’ve just decided to take advantage of it.”

“Take advantage of it?”

“After the first few decades saying ‘making the most of it’ just sounded depressing.”

Steve nodded, he had an idea what Esmeralda meant. He himself was a man well out of his time, though how he got there was entirely different. He was having a hard enough time adapting, he couldn’t imagine what it would have been like watching as time went by and everyone he loved got older and died. What he didn’t know was Esmerelda couldn’t help but pity him, she couldn’t imagine what it was like to be picked up and plopped into such a wildly different time. She had the ability to grow and change with the times and adapt with the rest of society while he had been forced to face the change so instantaneously.

They worked well together, perhaps that had something to do with the fact that they were from a similar time or that Esmeralda took the time to explain the nuances of the 21st Century that Steve didn’t quite understand. Save for any mentioning of the _Wizard of Oz_ and _Star Wars_ , clearly those had been among the first things he watched. Perhaps it had been a shared pain between the two-everyone they had known was long dead and past.

Natasha and Phil were more than aware of Essie’s presence and how she worked, she had not only recruited both of them-but had faced Natasha multiple times before the Russian agent joined S.H.I.E.L.D. Esmeralda might not have had the intensive training of the Red Room but she had literal _decades_ of experience-over 50 years of it by the time she came across Natasha-and that had included fighting other graduates of the Red Room.

Tony had met Esmeralda as a child, back when his father was deeply invested in S.H.I.E.L.D. At the time he thought she was stopping by to visit the family, and visit him at times, but as he got older and realized the constant danger his family was in he realized it was more than just checking up on friends. It was a duty to keep them alive, a duty she faithfully followed long after Howard and Maria Stark were killed in what everyone assumed to be a car crash-Esmeralda believed otherwise.

Thor had never bet the agent before, but he respected someone who not only had the courage to stand up to him but kick him in the throat. The jab had caught him by surprise, as he rushed forward to attack he hadn’t thought of that particular opening in his guard-nobody had actually taken advantage of it. People, especially mortals, tend to dodge out of the way when the blond Asgardian came rushing at them with his hammer. To make matters more interesting, while she looked young she had a wisdom that one could only get from age and experience.

Bruce didn’t spend a lot of time with her at first, though they would come to get to know each other after S.H.I.E.L.D fell. It wasn’t as if they disliked each other or distrusted each other, in fact the few times Bruce had come across Agent Faria before the Manhattan Incident she had warned him that agents were on his tail. Hell, she had warned him that S.H.I.E.L.D was on his tail, she never told him why.

Agent Barton was glad his former S/O was the one to kick him in the head, literally, after ordering Nat to the infirmary after her run-in with an angry and threatened Hulk. Later he learned that, after discovering Fury had called the Barton family to tell them the news, Esmeralda called the family. She talked the potential widow through her tears before promising she would get the 'court jester' back to his regular form of crazy in no time. It might have seemed crass at the time, but hearing someone sound so...cavalier had eased some concern-though that would never stop any loving wife from fretting over her husband.

“Hey I uh…I…” Steve laughed nervously as he rubbed the back of his neck then put his hand back in the pocket of his brown leather jacket, “It’s been brought to my attention I may need a social life…”

“Wow, Nat waited a full 24 hours before teasing you. Now _that’s_ respect,” Esmerelda joked as she leaned back against her black ’68 Plymouth Fury III convertible and crossed her arms.

“How long did she wait for you?” Steve had to ask, there were times he could have sworn the red-headed assassin looked at Esmeralda like a mentor or older sister. Then again, if it weren’t for him Esmeralda would be the oldest person on the team-and she was certainly the only original member of S.H.I.E.L.D left in the field.

“Oh she’s never asked me, but we live a very similar life in very similar ways,” Esmeralda answered simply, and Steve could believe it…part of it. He had heard Natasha mention a few things about her before they walked into the bridge, it sounded like Esmeralda left an impression. That was another thing that didn’t surprise Steve, Esmeralda was good at making impressions. She sure as hell made one on Bucky, Steve had never seen his childhood friend that crazy over a girl when he _knew her name._ Bucky went through the trouble of risking his life to bother Peggy about it, even after finding out she had taken a few shots at Steve. Granted it was at his shield but the point still stood. _  
_

_She’s my soulmate, Stevie, I know it._

“Would you like to go get coffee or dinner? Not like a date, just as friends…I...I don’t think I could date you…”

“Alright, you’re a little too boy scout to be anything other than a friend, but still. _Ouch_ ,” Esmeralda was teasing, but things did take an unexpected turn.

“No, no, you’re beautiful and great but…Bucky was really crazy over you. If I went out with you I’d feel like I was stabbing him in the back…”

“Wow…I um…I didn’t think Bucky remembered me, let alone you,” Esmeralda was caught by surprise. She had certainly remembered Bucky; he was the first guy to ever take a real interest in her. Not as an agent or assassin, not as the hand grenade he was diving on for his buddy, not as a girl that looked like she’d be an easy screw. He just talked to her, for _hours_ , then they danced and never once did he make a move to grab her inappropriately, and _she_ had been the one to initiate the kiss. It was one night she would forever look back at and call perfect, even if it didn’t end the way it did in her dreams.

“He was crazy about you. Spent the rest of his days trying to figure out your name, even bugged Peggy about it so much she almost didn’t tell him out of spite,” Steve smiled nostalgically, remembering the ‘good days,’ even though they were at war.

“ _Almost_?”

“She told him a few days before…you were practically all he could talk about.”

Esmeralda only got more and more depressed, hanging her head as the arms crossed over her chest tensed, “What was his mark?”

“What?”

“His _soul mark_ , what was it?” Esmeralda tried not to sound like she was snapping at him, but it came out almost like a demanding sneer. Steve didn’t want to tell her, in case Bucky was right, but Esmeralda asked again, more like _demanded_ , and he just couldn’t tell her no.

Steve sighed as his shoulders slumped and he gave Essie the answer she was demanding, “It was on the right side of his ribcage, right under his chest. It was the infinity symbol, the sideways eight, I used to tease him cause some cultures use it as a symbol for-“

“Eternity…” Essie finished for him. She didn’t look up at him, didn’t say goodbye. She stayed silent as she yanked the door of her beloved car open, got in the drivers’ seat, and slammed the door shut before speeding off. For the first time since she signed up for the SSR in the late 30’s, she took time off of work. Over the years, as everyone she loved grew old and died, she couldn't bring herself to separate from work. It reminded her of how painfully alone she was, and decades of life had taught her that the best way to deal with your own emotions were to bury yourself in work and hit things. That was why it was bizarre when nobody saw or heard from her for two weeks, but when she returned it was clear something had changed.

She walked right into Fury’s office without an invitation, which was common for her, and requested a new partner, being sure to specify Captain Rogers, and naturally Fury agreed. In the same meeting she slapped the file she had been holding on Fury’s desk-the file he had foolishly believed were the papers for her time off and request for a new partner. Esmeralda sat down across from him at the meeting table in his office as he opened the file. This was one of those rare times Esmeralda used her seniority to get what she wanted. Ever since Fury had _joined_ S.H.I.E.L.D he had only seen her use this trump card three times. If she was going this far, it was important.

Fury opened the file and, had it come from anyone else, he wouldn’t have believed it.

Hydra was still a threat.


	5. November Rain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Essie has finally accepted her fate, she was going to live and die alone with nothing more than the memory of a purely innocent night with her soulmate. Bucky had given his life to stop Hydra, the least she could do was continue the fight.
> 
> The Winter Soldier knew what the mark on the right side of his rib cage meant, even if nobody had explained it to him. It didn't matter, she was likely long dead and even if she wasn't, he would never find her. Imagine his surprise when he found out he was wrong. Imagine his reaction when it finally settled in his mind.
> 
> His soul mate was alive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> November Rain by Guns n' Roses is one of the best songs in the world, and if you've never heard it you've never lived.
> 
> Now that I've said that, yes I'm alive. I'm taking summer classes and I was the genius who decided that all but one of my classes would be Legal Studies classes, and the last one would be a level 300. Not my brightest move.
> 
> That being said, I'm a dumb college student in the US. I own nothing but a lifetime worth of debt.

# Chapter Five

### November Rain

Well, to say that mission was a clusterfuck would be an understatement. It hadn’t been easy getting the pirates to take the S.H.I.E.L.D ship. They had tried that multiple times and it never ended well, each and every time S.H.I.E.L.D got their ship out of the pirates’ hands one way or another. Still, it had to be done if Essie was going to get to the Lemurian Star and download everything on their systems. Steve wasn’t supposed to see her in the server room, or even know what her primary mission was, and yet he saw her when he crashed through the door and boy was he pissed. He didn’t talk to her at all and stormed right to Fury’s office. Essie didn’t stop him, or warn Fury. She had wanted to bring Steve into the investigation in the first place, it was Fury who was so convinced that Steve couldn’t pull off a convincing poker face he didn’t recognize that even before the war, Steve was a remarkably fast learner.

Esmeralda kicked the door to her apartment shut and dropped her duffle bag of gear by her door and locked the door. The second she returned to the office she delivered the flash drive to Fury and ended up on the phone with Skye. She had met with the hacker and new S.H.I.E.L.D recruit a few times, assisting the team multiple times. She still remembered when Simmons and Skye had literally shot Agent Sitwell as they broke every rule they possibly could in the course of tracking Ward and Fitz through a Level 8 classified operation.

Esmeralda sighed when she saw Sitwell on the ground and Simmons holding the ‘Night-Night Pistol’ with a stunned expression on her face. Esmeralda looked around the corner and saw Skye watching through the glass door to the hallway, just as stunned as Simmons.

_“As much as I wish that I was the one to pull the trigger on Sitwell, what in the actual fuck are you two doing?” Essie asked the young Biochemist, gently pulling the gun from her hands._

_“Well…I…it’s just…Ward took Fitz out to the field and we aren’t allowed to know anything-“_

_“Alright, alright. Take a breath, go to the café and get some lunch. I’ll hide Sitwell and log in to get the full file and we’ll figure out what to do,” Esmeralda ordered, gently, “Get goin’ kiddo, I’ll be right there and we’ll come up with a plan to save your boyfriend.”_

Yeah, that wasn’t an awkward mission. When they returned to the Hub, Ward thought they were going to hook up and they weren’t. It had been fun but Essie had bigger concerns and over her decades of life she had learned how to end a relationship and move on at the drop of a hat-and what they had couldn’t really be described as a relationship.

She couldn’t bring herself to admit the truth at that time, but she could now. She had confirmation that she had long since lost her soulmate. She had found him, and even though he was long dead now that she knew, Essie couldn’t bring herself to be with anyone else. It was just one night but every time she went out for the night, just as the latest fuck boy was going to take her to his place, it would all come back. The way Barnes had held her, the way he smiled and laughed, the way he would hum as he sighed in content as they swayed to the music, and the kiss. It was a chaste and innocent kiss, but it still blew every other kiss away.

Essie was still drying her hair, only dressed in an old pair of red flannel pajama pants, the matching button-up shirt she had yet to button, revealing the blue bra she wore underneath, when she heard a gunshot from the floor below and Agent 13 over the radio. Essie rushed over to her own radio and picked it up.

“What in the actual fuck is going on?” Essie snapped.

_“Foxtrot is down, he’s unresponsive, the Captain is in pursuit of the shooter.”_

“I’m on my way,” Essie responded before tossing her radio down and grabbing her gun and her zip-line from the drawer of her night-stand and left through her window. She was still human, and couldn’t sprint as fast as Steve, which is why she was surprised when she noticed the shooter was gaining distance. That didn’t deter her, she just had to plan her own pursuit accordingly. She caught up just as Steve threw his shield at the shooter.

Essie swung on her zip-line onto the roof and rolled into her landing. That was when she saw it, the metal arm that caught Cap’s infamous shield. Essie had fought the Winter Soldier before, but never in the states. She had to move fast, and she couldn’t kill him. He was their best chance at information. She got up and shot a few times, a bullet planted itself in his shoulder and torso, before he tossed the shield back to the Captain.

Essie didn’t catch up to the assassin before he leapt off the roof and disappeared. He had reacted slower, Essie had a chance to shoot him twice before he took off.

“I’ve fought him before, his reflexes are normally faster than that,” Essie said as she caught her breath and tucked her gun into the waistband of her pajama pants “Something distracted him, maybe we could use that next time to capture him and-“

“Um…Essie…your um…your shirt…uh bra…”

“What? God.” Essie looked down and saw her shirt was still wide open and her bra was the only think keeping her breasts covered. She instantly began buttoning her shirt but something caught Steve’s eye, her soul mark. He stopped her, gently, so he could actually see her soul mark.

Bucky was right, they were soul mates. Steve looked back up to Essie’s pale green eyes and the look he gave her was all she needed. Her jaw clenched and she closed her eyes to breath for a second before composing herself and buttoning her shirt the rest of the way.

“Fury was just shot, we have work to do,” Essie pulled away and made her way back to her apartment to change. Steve sighed and his shoulders fell. He knew how she felt, he lost the woman he was convinced was his soul mate.

Steve followed his partner with a new determination to protect her. She was his best friend’s best girl, and she was going through the same pain he was. Little did they know, the Winter Soldier wasn’t distracted by Esmeralda’s nearly bare breasts, _that time._

 

The doctors were never gentle when they patched him up, but he didn’t care. He had stopped wincing long ago and just let himself zone out, but this time was different. He caught his reflection in the one-way window where Pierce was likely waiting until he could get the Soldier’s report. The Soldier’s eyes shifted to the mark on his side, just under his chest and spanning that side of his ribcage. He knew what it was, they had let him remember that at least, and he knew what it meant. He had long since assumed the woman that wore the match to his mark had died, but she was still alive and well.

He wouldn’t tell them, he _couldn’t_ tell them, they would kill her.

They would make _him_ kill her.

He would let the entire world burn before he let them hurt her.

_He would burn the world himself if he had to._


	6. Monster

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Essie and Steve are on the run from S.H.I.E.L.D, tracking down the entity attempting to rip it all apart from the inside, when Essie faces a startling and heartbreaking discovery.
> 
> Everything she has been fighting for, everything she did, was for nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was listening to Monster by Paramore a lot, so that should explain the rather depressing turn this takes at the end. It's part of the ongoing story, it's not heedless angst, and to be fair Essie has put literal decades into S.H.I.E.L.D, so I think she's entitled to start doubting everything.

# Chapter Six

### Monster

The trip to New Jersey was already going to be long enough, the awkward silence didn’t help matters. Steve would occasionally shoot awkward glances at Essie, who was surprised she hadn’t been lectured into taking her feet off the dashboard. In Essie’s experience, there was only one way to make things better in an awkward moment such as this. Make things as awkward as humanly possible.

“I’m going out on a limb and guessing Nat hasn’t succeeded in setting you up,” Essie turned to look at Steve, who briefly looked away from the road to share his baffled expression with Essie before turning back to the road.

“What…what makes you say that?”

“Well, no offense, but you are…well…out of practice. Admittedly I did catch you by surprise, I probably should have given you a warning before I kissed you, but, that had to be your first kiss since the 40’s.”

Steve briefly recalled Essie’s quick thinking as they escaped the mall, Rumlow and the STRIKE team hunting them down as fugitives. Steve was making a plan of attack to get out, then Essie pulled him towards her until he had her cornered against the wall as they kissed-she held him firmly in place with a hand at the back of his head. Steve was a very old fashioned guy, and there were things you just didn’t do. You don’t kiss a girl you don’t have intentions of going steady with, you don’t take advantage of your friends, and you never kiss your best friend’s best girl-even if he’s been dead for decades. So, naturally, Essie pulled him into doing all three at once.

“Wow, that bad?”

“No, just out of practice.”

“Out of practice? You don’t need to practice-“

“Oh, so you think it’s just a natural talent? Either you can do it or you can’t?” Essie snorted.

“It’s not my first kiss since 1945.”

“Steve, we _literally_ see each other every day. I _know_ that’s a lie,” Essie pointed out, “We’re in our 90’s not dead. Live a little.”

“It’s kind of hard to find someone with shared life experience,” Steve replied, “And it’s not like I can ask every girl I see to lift her shirt so I can see her soul mark, I'm not _Stark._ ”

Essie threw her head back as she laughed, “Couple of things. One, you’ve been spending way too much time with me because you’re starting to sound like me. Two, it’s the 21st Century and I highly doubt _anyone_ would say no to you asking them to lift their shirt, especially if you say _please_.”

Steve only rolled his eyes, “Take your feet off the dash, we’re returning the car when we’re done.”

“We’re fugitives from S.H.I.E.L.D., I think stealing a car is the least of our concerns,” Essie retorted as she lazily took her feet off of the dashboard. The silence in the car had become comfortable as they returned to an old, abandoned army base-and Essie knew exactly where they needed to go.

“This was one of the first S.H.I.E.L.D bases,” Essie said, waiting for Steve to break the lock with his shield before pulling the remnants of the lock off of the door and pulling the door open, “I thought it was abandoned by the 80’s when we set up our main base in the Triskelion.”

“They didn’t tell you?” Steve asked, heartily concerned. Essie had been Peggy’s best friend and was one of the original founders of S.H.I.E.L.D-despite her long career as a field agent. If she wasn’t told about something…

“I doubt Peggy knew, as S.H.I.E.L.D got bigger and bigger, Howard, Peggy, and I started keeping more and more secrets. Compartmentalizing, if nobody knew all the secrets then nobody could get their hands on all the secrets,” Essie explained, “We didn’t think about what would happen when we started dying off.”

Essie looked around the old base, reminiscing about better times, while Steve found the hidden elevator. Essie narrowed her brow, she didn’t know that elevator was there but maybe…she punched in her personal key-code and the elevator door slid open. They rode the elevator down, down, and farther down until they were well below surface-level and the second the doors slid open, Essie visibly paled. Steve had never seen her in such a panic before, her skin was clammy and her eyes had grown wide as she stared at the 1980’s computer console in the middle of the room, her hands clenched as she kept them from shaking.

“No…no, Stark, you didn’t…” Essie was a ghost as she walked across the room and plugged in the flash drive, activating the old computer. The second Dr. Zola’s face appeared on the screen, her eyes slowly slid shut and her face matched the pained tone of her voice as she whispered one last, no.  Essie knew Zola had been recruited, she had heard he was dying, and she had heard a rumor that they were attempting to make an AI based on his brainwaves but she thought she and Peggy had officially shot that idea down.  It was horrible, it was terrible, and they were against recruiting the mad doctor in the first place.  Clearly, they had been ignored.

Then it happened, then she heard it.

She had known Hydra was still alive, _but living within S.H.I.E.L.D?_

Essie’s entire world came crashing down around her as everything she had been working for in the past seven decades became tainted by the same entity that had started her on the long and dark path she had been living. She stood, still and silent, as Zola continued to speak before screaming and attacking the console with her bare hands and destroying it in the rush of emotions that had overcome her. She couldn’t think, she couldn’t breathe, she could only scream as the tears streaked down her cheeks and the blood rushed from her hands as she continued to rip the console apart.  
She let out one last bloodcurdling scream as the first bomb dropped and she would never tell Steve this, or anyone, but she had wished her friend had left her there. She wished he hadn’t pulled her to safety and left her to die with the tattered remains of everything she was and everything she worked for. The only thing that kept her from losing herself was everything she had worked for and now…now that was gone too… Everything she had done, the people she had killed, the lies she had told, it had all meant nothing.

In an earlier time, she would have felt angry. She would have screamed and lashed out, stalked and killed everyone that had ruined it all, but she wasn’t that person anymore. She wasn’t that _young_ anymore. She simply didn’t have it in her to do anything more than _pretend_ she had that zeal in her, to make everyone around her believe she was still alive inside, but now…

Now she couldn’t even bring herself to trick the ones around her into believing she was still alive, let alone herself.

All she had left, now, was a long life of darkness, death, and shadows, and she couldn’t live like that forever.

But she would have to try.


	7. One More

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a brief moment of peace and finding a new ally and friend in Sam Wilson, things have sped right back up. The heroes thought they were safe, assumed dead and hiding behind Sitwell's S.H.I.E.L.D and Hydra credentials.
> 
> The Winter Soldier arrived just in time to prove their assumptions wildly incorrect, and to get a better look at the green-eyed woman's mark. He must have been seeing things when he saw her last. She couldn't possibly be the one.
> 
> Right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'One More' by Superchick is a really inspirational song when it comes to getting back up and trying again, and I feel like that's a place that Esmeralda is in right now. Especially after finding just how deeply Hydra has wormed its way into S.H.I.E.L.D.

# Chapter Seven

### One More

Esmeralda sat on the bed with her legs crossed, staring at her hands, after taking a shower and towel drying her hair. Sam had been kind enough to let her and Steve hide at his apartment while they came up with a plan, but that didn’t stop the turmoil going through Essie’s mind-and soul. Steve noticed the way she seemed to break down and, after cleaning up himself, pulled up a chair to sit across from her.  She had barely bothered to dry her long chocolate-brown hair, deciding to pull it into a ponytail while it was still damp and manageable before it dried and became the thick untamed mess it normally was.

“Are you alright?”

“I know we have to go out and save the world, but I want nothing more than to crawl into bed and binge eat while hiding under the covers while binge watching Netflix,” Essie answered, trying to lighten the mood but the small scoff she let out said more than she intended. Steve just ducked his head down so he could look up into Essie’s pale green eyes and urge her to tell him the truth.

“I helped make S.H.I.E.L.D what it is, I’ve been fighting Hydra since the 40’s, and still they managed to slither their way into everything I’ve worked so hard for and rip it to pieces. Everything I’ve done, every lie, every assassination…it was for nothing…” Essie looked up at Steve as she answered before ducking her gaze back down as she looked back down at her hands which were folded in her lap.

“It wasn’t for nothing, S.H.I.E.L.D has done a lot of good, so did the SSR before it ended,” Steve offered.

“All good things must come to an end,” Essie replied with a half-hearted smirk, “Maybe it’s time we took it down and made something better.”

Steve smiled softly before agreeing, “Maybe.”

 

Getting Sitwell to talk didn’t take much effort. Essie was actually kind of bummed when Sam dropped him back onto the roof and the Hydra Agent began to spill his deepest secrets. Essie wanted to kick him off of the roof again. Very rarely did she have the luxury of kicking someone she _actually hated_ off of a roof, and she could use some stress relief. It felt really good, when Sitwell was worried Pierce was going to kill him for spilling the Hydra beans, and Essie stepped forward and told the traitor that she was going to do _far_ worse than kill him.  Sitwell looked at her with panicked eyes.  It had been assumed that Agent Faria would be  _tamed_ by working with Captain Rogers, a relief to those who had read her file and knew they would be forced to cross her one day.  They were oh so very,  _very_ wrong.  Actually, she could go for an old-fashioned Agent-on-Agent battle right about now. It’s been a long day and she really needed to shoot someone.

She didn’t think it was going to happen on the highway.

They looked up when they heard someone land on the roof of the sedan before a metal arm crashed through the rear driver’s side window and grabbed Sitwell before throwing him into incoming traffic, where he was hit by a semi. Years ago, when Essie had escorted Steve’s frozen ass back to the states the Winter Soldier always attacked them in their vehicles.

“ _Why_? Why is it always the _fucking_ cars with this man?” Essie snapped as she climbed into the front seat, dodging the bullets being fired at them through the roof of the car. She knew it was the Winter Soldier the second they heard footsteps on the roof of the car, there were two agents with the balls to pull that kind of move on a busy highway and one of them was actually _inside_ the car. Between the assassin Sam had just thrown off the roof by slamming on the breaks and the armored van behind them, things had become a real clusterfuck real fast.

Steve had been thrown clear off of the overpass and Essie made a beeline to follow him. She shot at the assassin hunting them and pulling his attention directly to her as she flipped over the side of the overpass and used the zip-line she kept tucked in the back of her jeans to swing down. She ran under the overpass and saw the shadows of the men hunting them. She slowed down to pull two throwing knives out from under her old denim jacket and stepped carefully, her worn black combat boots never making a sound. She aimed carefully before flinging one steel throwing knife, closely followed by a second. One imbedded itself in the Soldier’s goggles, the other in his shoulder. He ducked down and leaned back against the wall of the overpass as he pulled the goggles off before yanking the throwing knife out of his flesh shoulder.

Seemed like he would have to deal with the woman sooner rather than later.

_“I have her. Find him.”_

Essie sprinted down the street as the Soldier jumped off of the overpass and followed her. She unwrapped the red and blue flannel shirt tied around her waist and slid her old denim jacket off, leaving her in her worn jeans, white tank-top, and the leather action holster strapped to her right leg that held her favorite handgun, jackknife, and a sturdy pair of handcuffs.

Between the two of them, Essie was the stealthy one, she would have to play off of that. It didn’t take long to find a good place to hide overhead, and she waited until the right moment-watching as the other assassin walked carefully down the street with his assault rifle. She slipped out of hiding before crouching down and sneaking up behind him. She had to keep his metal arm out of the fight, but there was no way she could hold it down with her arms, so she would have to use her legs. She slipped behind a car and waited for the right moment, before launching herself at the assassin from behind. She kicked the assault rifle out of his hands as she wrapped her left leg around his left arm and her right leg was thrown over the Soldier’s shoulder to keep her in place as she pulled out her jackknife and attempted to short out the cybernetic limb by stabbing through it.

That was when she discovered a definite difference between the super soldier she was fighting, and the one she fought with. Steve was faster, he managed to catch up to the Soldier when they were both in a mad sprint, but the assassin was stronger. Every time Essie trained with Steve he was never able to just pull her off of him, he always had to maneuver his way out of the grapple because she was too well positioned and he could never get a firm enough grip on her. The Soldier, however, just reached around and grabbed Essie’s other side before yanking her off of him and throwing her down onto the ground.

She had a hard landing, one she would be feeling for a few days, but she had to get back up. She would have, too, if she was as fast as a super soldier. She wasn’t. Despite her seemingly eternal youth, she was still entirely mortal and it took a few seconds for the soldier to slip the handcuffs from Essie’s action holster and cuff her, looping the handcuffs through the door handle of the car behind her so she couldn’t move. She looked up at the handcuffs, utterly baffled, before looking at the assassin with a furrowed brow.

“Stay,” he ordered, speaking _English_ instead of _Russian_ , which had become expected of the infamous assassin. There was something eerily familiar about the man, about his voice, about his sharp blue eyes and dark brown hair, but there was no time to ponder that. Essie got to work on slipping the cuffs. She couldn’t reach the key so she would have to dislocate her thumb to slip them, but she had already done that so many times it was second nature. She just had to get the right-

_Why in the actual hell was he lifting her shirt?_

It was slow and deliberate, and _careful_. Like he didn’t know what he would find. He didn’t lift it far, just enough to see her soul mark. His brow furrowed for no longer than an instant, the only sign of emotion other than anger she had ever seen on the assassin, as he eyed Essie’s soul mark. She could only see half of his face, she couldn’t read him as well as she would have liked, but she could still try to-

She didn’t have time to finish that thought. The world, which had previously stopped, began spinning once again. The Soldier stood up and left Essie there as Steve dashed towards them. Steve would have preferred if Essie had stayed there, out of the fight, and clearly the assassin wanted her out of it too. Good thing she wasn’t one to listen, even when she heard the gong of the Soldier’s metal fist hitting Steve’s infamous shield. She barely winced as she snapped her thumb out of place and slipped the cuffs off, reaching into her holster to grab the key and unlock the cuffs before snapping her thumb back into place. She pulled her gun out and watched as Steve threw the Soldier over his shoulder, and the mask fell to the ground.

Esmeralda froze in place, was she seeing things or…or was it really…

_“Bucky?”_ Steve couldn’t believe it either.

“Who the hell is Bucky?”


	8. The Kids Aren't Alright

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just when Agent Faria was willing to be nothing more than an agent, a woman with an emptiness in her soul and a dark past of doing the dirty deeds that needed to be done, and a willingness to do those things, life throws her a curve ball. She thought she was used to all the twists and turns of an Agent's life. Then she found him, her soulmate.
> 
> A man who didn't know his own name, but knew they were connected.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was listening to 'The Kids Aren't Alright' by Fall Out Boy the entire time while writing this. Literally, it was on repeat the entire time.

# Chapter Eight

### The Kids Aren't Alright

They were cuffed, riding in the back of a S.H.I.E.L.D armored prisoner transport van. They weren’t going to make it back to the Triskelion. They weren’t even going to make it to a _Hydra_ base. They were going to be killed and their bodies were going to be hidden as they were used as martyrs to excuse the massacre that was going to launch in less than 16 hours. Esmeralda was familiar with the game, she had done some dark things herself in the line of duty-one of them being killing fugitives and hiding the evidence.  Decades ago Esmeralda Faria would be pissed, when she was young and full of fire she had planned on going down in a blaze of glory. Now, her thoughts were all revolved around the same thing.

_Her soulmate was alive._

“It was him,” Steve confirmed, not only to Esmeralda but to himself, “He looked right at me, like he didn’t even know me…”

“How is that possible? It was like, 70 years ago,” Sam pointed out, earning a pointed look from a very tired Agent Faria.

“Zola…Bucky’s unit was captured in 43, Zola experimented on him. Whatever he did must have helped Bucky survive the fall. They must have found him,” Steve explained, but that didn’t quiet Essie’s concerns.

“I’m more concerned with how they got him to follow their orders. The Bucky we remember would have fought his way out or died trying, so what happened?” Essie questioned, “How did they erase his own _name_? More importantly, how do we get rid of the babysitters and get the hell out of here?”

One of the guards, the smaller one, responded by pulling a stun baton out and flashing it in Sam’s face, he was the closest to her. She flipped it with practiced ease before stabbing it against her partner’s chest and kicking his head against the wall of the van. The three fugitives sat there, surprised at the turn of events as Maria pulled off her helmet.

“ _Ahh_ ,” Maria let out a sigh of relief as she pulled the helmet off, “That thing was squeezing my brain…. Who’s this guy?”

“Sam, Maria, Maria, Sam,” Essie kept things short before holding out her hands, waiting for Maria to unshackle her, “Can we get going before we end up shot in the head?”

“Good call,” Maria agreed, unshackling Essie before moving on to free Steve and Sam.

They burned a hole in the bottom of the van and rolled out one-by-one. Maria led them to a getaway vehicle before driving them to an old, abandoned reservoir, where the fight against Hydra continued. They followed her through the gated entrance and down the dark, damp hallway, all the way to a small section separated by curtains. Maria pulled a curtain aside and the rest of them stood there, silently, as the new information they were presented with processed in their minds.

“About damn time,” Fury greeted them in his hospital bed.

Essie was, as expected, the first one to respond, “Fuck off.”

 

In the city, hidden away in a bank Hydra owned and used for their own purposes, The Asset was struggling with is identity. Seeing the woman had already shaken his loyalty to Hydra, and now it was beginning to fall apart as memories, old memories, resurfaced.

_Zola leaned over him with that sickening pride, “Sergeant Barnes.”_

_He was hanging from the edge of a cliff, no, a train as it sped along a cliff. His grip wavered, or maybe the tattered part of the train he was clinging to snapped. It didn’t matter, the effect was the same, he fell as a man-a friend-reached out in an attempt to catch him._

_“Bucky!”_

_Tattered memories, terrors almost. He was being dragged through the snow, barely conscious as he looked down to his arm-where it used to be-and blacked out. It was nothing but bits and pieces, sounds, voices, the sound of the saw and the pain of the new limb being attached to his shoulder._

_“You are to be the new fist of Hydra.”_

_The sick satisfaction from using it to grab one of the doctors by the neck and force them all to_   
_back away from him. The soldiers it took to force him into the cryogenic chamber._

_“Put him on ice.”_

_The slam of the heavy metal door and pounding his new metal limb against the door in a failed attempt to free himself before the world froze over and he was thrown into a dreamless sleep._

_The sight of pale green looking up at him as he heard a light laughter that sounded like music, better than any song he had ever heard. The feeling of a delicate hand on his own and his smile growing wider. The feeling of those soft, full lips against his own and the sparks that shot through his body as a result of the woman in his arms._

_“How about this? You promise to survive this war and at the end, when we get home, I’ll tell you my name.”_

_“Alright, beautiful, you have yourself a deal. But I still want that dance you promised me.”_

_The sway of her hips as she walked away from him, like she was teasing him. Then she turned around and everything had changed. It was dark and snow was everywhere. It was freezing, even for him, and she was there, eyeing him down as she held a knife in each hand. She sneered before throwing a knife at him with a flick of her wrist. He raised his gun and-_

The Asset shot up and threw the engineer poking and prodding at his mechanical arm back with such a force, the victim slid on the tiled floor until he hit the wall. Guns were aimed at The Asset, he stayed alert as every muscle in his body tensed. Emotions he hadn’t felt before, he certainly didn’t remember feeling them, rushed through his mind as he attempted to comprehend what he had just seen. Was it a dream? Were they memories?

_Did he really shoot her?_

He was frozen in place as he stared off into space, trying to comprehend, to _remember_ , and he just…he _couldn’t-_

He was jostled out of his daze by a literal slap to the face.

“Mission Report,” Pierce snapped, like he had already tried that.

“The man and the woman on the bridge…who are they?” The Asset asked, timidly. That was how he was programmed, he didn’t ask questions and yet…he was asking them.

“You met him on an earlier assignment,” Pierce answered as he sat down, “The woman, you’ve come across many times, she was a thief before she became an agent and she always gives you the slip. She’s been a thorn in our side for the past seven decades and nothing we do seems to deter her.”

“I knew…him…” The Asset trailed off as the memory from earlier that day replayed through his mind. As the image of the woman’s soul mark flashed through his mind. He had almost slipped, he had almost let that damned training and conditioning break through and make him tell them about the woman. He couldn’t do that; he didn’t even _know_ her but something deep inside, something they hadn't taken from him, told him he couldn’t…he just _couldn’t_. How had he not noticed earlier? _Had_ he known earlier? How did he manage to forget? God, everything was so confused and he couldn't grasp on to anything as a fact.

“But I knew him…”

He had so many questions, so many thoughts, running through his mind, he hadn’t even heard a thing Pierce had said. He hadn’t been paying attention until-

“Prep him,” Pierce ordered as he got up and started to leave.

“He’s been out of cryo-freeze for too long…” one of the doctors timidly replied, nearly shaking at the mere thought of defying Pierce.

“Then wipe him, and start over.”


	9. It Ends Tonight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> S.H.I.E.L.D. is coming down, but that's not the real question on Steve and Essie's mind. The real question is, what will they do about Bucky?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It Ends Tonight by All American Rejects, 'nuff said.

# Chapter Nine

### It Ends Tonight

They were hiding out in an abandoned reservoir, gathered around a fold-out table sitting in fold-out chairs and planning their next move on three laptops modified for use in the field. They needed to stop the launch, that much was clear. They knew they needed to break into the data center for each of the Helicarriers and replace the chip with the targeting array with their own chips. The question was, _how_? Esmeralda had faced worse odds with less, but the lives she had to pay weren’t just the enemy’s lives but her own people. She stood, leaned over the table and staring down at the plans as the voices of the rest of the team turned into muffled sounds in the background.

“We’re not bringing back S.H.I.E.L.D,” she finally said, interrupting the chatter around the table. Silence struck the tired and haggard team as they looked at the only founder of S.H.I.E.L.D left as deeply involved in the organization as they day it started. She couldn’t be serious. She had been their first field agent, she had put years of her life organizing the Spec. Ops academy, recruiting new agents, training them, fighting and killing-

“Faria, if we can salvage what’s left-“

“I told you when I found Hydra because I thought you’d do the right thing, and now S.H.I.E.L.D is going to become the face of mass murder in the name of Hydra and I don’t even want to think about how many people are dead because I let you handle it. This isn’t your mission anymore; you don’t have a say in how it ends.”

“S.H.I.E.L.D, Hydra, it all goes,” Steve agreed.

Fury breathed deeply, as deeply as he could with a collapsed lung at any rate, as he sat back and looked at the 90-year-old woman, “You should have taken the job when they asked you to.”

“No, I never should have taken that job. I’m just a thief with too much time and blood on her hands and that’s never going to change.”

This wouldn’t be the end of S.H.I.E.L.D, she knew that, but she also knew that they couldn’t be the one to bring it back. They were onto something, a S.H.I.E.L.D around the people to protect them when things were too much for human kind to handle, but they had let the enemy into their ranks. There was a better way, and Faria could only hope the people who knew what it was would put it into action.

 

Esmeralda had been working on the plan when Steve took his leave. He needed some fresh air, some silence to process…everything. Finding out Hydra had made its way into S.H.I.E.L.D was a slap in the face, he had sacrificed himself for nothing and worse yet _Bucky_ had died for nothing. Then things took a turn for the worse, Bucky hadn’t just died for nothing-he _hadn’t died_. They had found him and… _twisted_ him into a cold-blooded killer, something so different from the Bucky that Steve knew it left a bad taste in his mouth just thinking about it.

_“We looked for you after, my folks wanted to give you a ride to the cemetery,” Bucky said as he followed Steve up the stairs to his friend’s small apartment._

_“I know, I’m sorry, I…kind of wanted to be alone,” Steve apologized, needlessly, keeping his hands in his pockets and his gaze down. It had been a long day, a long few days, and nobody would blame him for needing some space least of all Bucky._

_“How was it?”_

_“It was nice, she’s next do dad,” Steve answered simply, searching his pockets for the key to his apartment. He knew he grabbed it on his way out that morning…did he?_

_“I was gonna’ ask-“_

_“I know what you’re gonna say, Buck. I just…” Seriously, where in the hell was his key? Oh god, it was still on the kitchen counter._

_“We can put the couch cushions on the floor like when we were kids. It’ll be fun, all you gotta’ do is shine my shoes, maybe take out the trash,” Bucky tried to talk Steve into it, kicking aside the brick on the ground and picking up the extra key and handing it to Steve, “Come on.”_

_“Thank you, Buck, but I can get by on my own.”_

_“Thing is, you don’t have to,” Bucky said as he clapped his hand down on Steve’s shoulder and looked him in the eyes, “I’m with you till the end of the line.”_

“Sam wanted to come out here and talk to you, I told him there wasn’t anything he could say that you hadn’t already thought about,” Essie said as she walked down the overpass of the reservoir to join Steve. She had let her long brown hair fall down her shoulders but remained in the now dirt and blood stained tank top and ripped jeans she had been wearing when they were captured. She stopped about two yards away from Steve before turning to lean forward on the thick metal railing and look off into the distance as the wind blew through her hair.

Looking at her Steve could almost see the young woman in the bar with her hair tied up and decorated with that single flower and dolled up in her black dress and heels. Long years and age had taken its toll on Essie. Once bright green eyes were now pale and wizened. Plush lips that were always turned up in a confident smirk or a coy smile now showed very little real emotion, unless they were turned down in a frown. Soft tanned skin that was once flawless was now scarred as evidence of decades of fighting. In another world, in another time, Steve could see himself falling for her even now but time had taken its toll on both of them and the desire to save the past and heal old scars was too tempting to allow them to just move on with each other.

“What do you think we should do?” Steve asked. He honestly didn’t know where Esmeralda stood. Over the decades she had fought Bucky many times and had almost died because of him many times. On the other hand, he was her soulmate and even now Buck seemed aware of it.

“In the long run, that’s up to him I think…but for now I just want to tell him my name,” she answered simply.

“He knows your name, Peggy told us and I doubt-”

“I know, but we had a deal. If we both survived the war I’d tell him my name, and that’s a promise I wanna’ keep, believe it or not.”

Steve smiled and closed the distance between him and his partner, placing his hand gently on her shoulder and saying, “I think he’d like that.”


	10. We Remain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> S.H.I.E.L.D. is gone, Bucky has disappeared, Tony is putting everything into privatizing global security and letting the Avengers become what they were meant to be, and Essie...for the first time in 90 years Essie decides it's time to become something more than just an agent, it's been her backup plan in case her original career path didn't pan out. The problem is, how can she be sure she's the right one for the job?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We Remain from the Hunger Games soundtrack, performed by Christina Aguilera.

# Chapter Ten

### We Remain

“So, we need somebody to dress up as the councilwoman, break into the celebration, take over the scene, and begin the hack into S.H.I.E.L.D. systems until Fury can get there all while Maria mans the control panel in the Triskelion, and Steve, Sam, and I take out the Tricarriers because nobody else is crazy enough to be on or around the Tricarriers when we shoot them down and crash them into the Potomac,” Essie surmised the plan and nodded, “I say Fury calls her, she’ll love that.”

Natasha was peeved enough to be pulled off of her vacation, let alone to find out Fury faked his death without telling her. Then the building fell down on her head and the building started falling apart, she almost ended up with a hole in her sternum, and she became victim to Fury’s helicopter piloting skills. He had no flying skills, by the way, which explained why Essie told the red-head to never ever let Fury fly. She left a week off with Bruce for this. She had originally planned on holding it over Essie and Steve, but that was before they landed in the Potomac and a Tricarrier landed on top of them.

“I hope your happy, I got stuck on Capitol Hill answering questions _you_ had the answers for,” Natasha teased.

“You know it had to be, as far as they know I’m an almost 30-year-old _descendant_ of my baby brother and I don’t know nearly as much as I think I do.  Besides, I think politely telling them to blow you was pretty close to what I would have said,” Essie defended with a light smile, her voice was rough from spending a week unconscious and she was still pale, beaten, and had a nasty bruise on the left side of her jaw that she remembered getting-thank you Bucky-and a bruise around her right bicep she didn’t remember getting.

“Yeah, you would have just walked in there, told them to suck your dick, faked your death and disappeared.  Lucky immortal bitch,” Natasha teased. She had been visiting Essie every day since S.H.I.E.L.D, she couldn’t exactly let her best friend die on her, but she should have expected Essie would be back to work the second she woke up. She was, too, after a check-up with the nurse she began giving Nat a list of people to call. Natasha wasn’t sure if Essie was aware, but the only thing keeping the old agent from having her own information network was a mixture of herself and S.H.I.E.L.D.

“This file was slipped under your door last night, I looked it over. It’s that elusive file on the Winter Soldier everyone in the world has been trying to get their hands on,” Natasha said as she handed the file to Essie, “Not sure how the hell you pulled this off, you ever considered setting up your own spy network?”

“You mean like an information broker?” Essie retorted, “It’s been the backup plan for the past…50 years now?”

“Yeah, I think now’s the time to cash in on all those connections you’ve made.”

“And what, exactly, do you think I’ve been doing? Sure, Stark and Maria are privatizing the spy business, that’s great, but I’d rather have my own network. No offense but-“

“Stark has no idea how to get information and Maria’s spent the last few years pushing papers and giving orders,” Natasha agreed, “Yeah, I’m worried about this too.”

“Well, if you need a backup job, I’ve been setting up this network for 50 years but there’s still room,” Essie offered as she looked over the file, “Who the hell dropped this off? There’s nothing in here that’ll help us find him. Is Steve up?”

“Yeah, five days before you. You think he’s got a lead?”

“Maybe not consciously but there’s gotta’ be something that would stick out to Bucky, help jog his…oh my fuck…help me get out of here.” Whatever Essie realized hit her like a freight train before she started pulling out her IV and getting herself out of the hospital bed.

“What the hell are you thinking?”

“Call Steve, tell him to meet me at the Smithsonian,” Essie ordered as she slipped out of her hospital bed and started digging through the duffle bag that Natasha had picked up for her a few days ago. She pulled out her clothes, thank god it was just black yoga pants, a green t-shirt, sneakers and a hoodie. Anything more complicated would probably be a bitch to put on, what with the wounds she’d picked up saving the world.

“Are you kidding me? You can’t leave the hospital, you’re-“ Natasha stopped herself when she saw Essie pull a pill bottle out of the bag and pop two pills before sealing the bottle and tossing it back into her bag, “What was that?”

“I dunno, Simmons gave it to me and told me to take it if I was wounded in the field and had to keep fighting. I figure it’s safe enough,” Essie shrugged, “Hey, shrugging didn’t hurt what the hell is in this stuff? Forget it, no time, gotta’ go to the Smithsonian I’ll solve the mystery of the blue gel capsules that glow in the dark later.”

“Glow in the, alright if you blow up I’m not cleaning it up.”

“Sounds fair, get Steve and meet me in the security room of the Smithsonian. Bring your phone, I lost mine in the Potomac,” Essie ordered as she opened the hospital room door and grabbed her duffel bag to leave.

“What am I? Your sidekick now?”

“Well I’m Batman so you kind of have to be Robin.”

 

“She broke herself out of the hospital and now she’s where?” Steve just had to clarify, and not because his phone lost reception, “What the hell is she thinking?”

_“She’s looking for Bucky, and there’s a…there’s an exhibit about you and the Howling Commandos, complete with a memorial to Bucky. If he was trying to piece together his memories that’s the first place he’d start, especially if he’s still in D.C.”_

“She didn’t say any of that before she left?”

_“You know how she gets; she never explains everything until it’s all over you just gotta’ hold on for the ride. It’s like riding a roller coaster without a handlebar or a seatbelt. Look, I couldn’t talk her out of it and at this rate I’m afraid anything I do to stop her could just make things worse. Could you just-”_

Steve sighed, “I’m on my way.”

 

When he got there the Smithsonian security guards were waiting outside of their office, meaning Essie was already inside. Steve walked inside and saw Essie pouring over the security footage for the past few days. She looked like shit, granted Steve didn’t look great either but at least his bruises had healed, minor cuts had begun disappearing, and his stitches were taken out. Essie, who was entirely human, was another matter altogether. She was still favoring her right side, the result of a knife to her side, and her ankle was still swollen even though the bruise had begun to fade. The bruise from where Bucky had punched her jaw was an ugly yellow and though Steve couldn’t see it, he assumed the one around her arm wasn’t much better.

“There, he stops there to look at the memorial, makes his way through the rest of the exhibit, and then disappears again. I’ll make some calls, see if I can get a friend of mine to look over the CCTV footage and track down where he went from here, but at least we have a date and time-“

“Essie, you gotta’ get some rest. I appreciate you wanting to track him down but-“

“I’m sorry, are you under the impression you’re the only one that should want to track him down?” Essie turned to stare down the super soldier, who was already fidgeting under Esmeralda’s stern gaze, “I did a little research on my mark while I was in the hospital. The only reason I’m alive and young is because _he’s_ alive and young. This damn mark is determined to make sure we live and die together, kind of a shock when you spent the last 70 years thinking it just meant you were spending eternity _alone._ ”

“At this rate, you’re gonna kill yourself looking for him and you’ll both be dead,” Steve reasoned, “I know you’re the type of person that wants to get right back up and back at it like nothing knocked you down in the first place, but you gotta’ let yourself heal.”

“I already called Dr. Cho and-“

“I don’t care who you called Ess! You’ve got me and Nat worried sick you’re actually gonna’ work yourself to death when you’re in good health! For the love of god, you were _stabbed_ and dropped out of the _sky._ You’re only human, Ess, you need to let yourself rest.”

“You’re not the one that fucked up Steve! I had 70 years to find Hydra but I just decided to believe that the bad guys lost and didn’t come back for once. The agent that was my partner for five fucking years was a murdering psychopath working for Hydra but I couldn’t see it because I decided to believe in a fairy tale ending even though I _know_ they don’t exist, and now…now there are a lot of people out there that are dead or missing someone they love or _worse_ because I spent the last 70 years blind to reality and my own soulmate is one of them!” Essie was near tears as she screamed before her shoulders and head fell.

“I fucked up, Steve…I fucked up and now the world is paying the price…all cause my friends and I wanted a fucking shield around the world instead of a strategic reserve…they killed Howard, stole Bucky, destroyed everything I’ve worked for…”

Steve was silent for a moment, he didn’t know what to say. Yes, they all shared some of the blame for what had happened to the world even him, but in the rush of the moment he had forgotten that Essie was one of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s founders. Sometimes it was easy to forget that Essie was still a human, no matter how larger than life she seemed. Looks like she forgot that too.

“We all…fucked up,” Steve admitted as he sat down in the chair next to Essie and turned her to face him.

“Did you just _curse_?” Essie teased a little, giving a half-assed smile despite the tears threatening to fall.

“Yeah, because I’m a soldier, we do that sometimes, and the world is one hell of a mess and we helped put it there. _But_ , we didn’t want to and you aren’t responsible for anything Hydra did to S.H.I.E.L.D., what they did to Howard and his wife, and you sure as hell aren’t guilty for what happened to Bucky. That’s _all_ on Hydra, and we’re not letting them get away with it,” Steve looked Essie in the eyes, leaning his elbows against his knees, to maintain eye contact before he continued as he got up and placed a brotherly kiss on top of Essie’s head, “Now, come on, Natasha’s worried sick about you and it’s only a matter of time until she calls every other Avenger to drag you back to bed.”

“I can take care of myself,” Essie protested.

“That has yet to be seen.”

As Steve grabbed Essie’s bag and helped her up and out to the car, Essie was deep in thought. For 50 years she had been setting up an information network, growing it as large as she could, replacing members when they retired or passed, funding it as needed, but she never made any use of it. She had the one weapon that could have pulled the rug out from underneath Hydra and stopped all of this but she refused to do it because she wanted to just shrug her shoulders and blame the orders she was given. Because she figured, if her life would be endless she might as well make it easy as she hid under the guise of wanting to find the perfect person for the job when in reality…

 _She_ was the perfect person for the job.


	11. The Beginning Is The End Is The Beginning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After Ultron, things had changed drastically. The team line-up had changed, they left the tower, their function in the world changed, and Esmeralda had grown her network so wide she spent most of her time acting independently from the Avengers.
> 
> It was the beginning of the end, and the end of a new beginning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The End Is The Beginning Is The End is a Smashing Pumkins song, I used to listen to it on repeat. Good times.

# Chapter Eleven

### The End Is The Beginning Is The End

It sounds crazy to think about Ultron as a _distraction_ , but that was what he was in the long run. It was because of Ultron the Avengers had created their own compound, they were privately funded, they had their own agents, the world had changed. Yet, for Esmeralda Faria it was nothing but a big fat disastrous distraction. She was grateful she had an entire building for her own use and the Avengers and their agents stayed out of her business but she had wished Fury would have given it to them instead of waiting until after a murderous AI plugged into a Vibranium body almost exterminated all life on the planet.

After S.H.I.E.L.D. fell Esmeralda made one phone call, actually it was a text, and her information network lit up like the Christmas Tree in Rockefeller Center. She had made a lot of friends in the past few decades and had a lot of people that owed her a lifetime worth of favors, between that and former S.H.I.E.L.D. agents that didn’t want to work for Stark or the CIA, Esmeralda was more than set.

Steve, the unanimously elected leader of the Avengers, didn’t argue. He didn’t even question it. Esmeralda just told him she was setting up her own network of agents and he said ‘okay.’ They knew it was coming, Natasha had been kind enough to give them a heads up, and to be honest it made their job easier. She was finding intel faster than anyone in the network Stark and Hill had set up, all they had to do was take the intel and ignore the fact that they didn’t know where it came from. It wasn’t ethical, but Esmeralda had been in the spy game longer than all of them and was finding Hydra bases and officials in bulk.

Hell, when Fury found out Esmeralda set up her own international network of spies, informants, agents, scientists, hackers, and assassins all he had to say was, “Finally! Only took her 70 goddamn years!”

Still, as time passed Tony was more and more unsure of their decision to give Esmeralda free reign. They had no control over her actions, only Steve and Natasha knew anything about what she was doing and they still only had _some_ of the pieces. Hell, the only reason Steve was allowed past the lobby in her two-story building on the compound was because they were searching for Bucky and the only reason Natasha was let in was because she was part of Esmeralda’s network. Nobody knew what she did in her personal office on the second floor, of course her bedroom and bathroom were attached which added to her level of desired privacy, and only Steve had seen inside her ‘drawing room.’

“If you’d just give me a peek-“

“No, Tony, you’re not even part of the Avengers anymore you’re just Mr. Moneybags now and I don’t need funding, hell I pay rent for this building,” Esmeralda retorted, her arms crossed as she leaned back against the reception desk, “I’m not asking you to trust me, I’m _telling_ you to keep your big nose out of it and let me do my job.”

“Or what, you’ll leave?” Tony retorted.

“When Fury and I split up the S.H.I.E.L.D. and SSR bases I’m not gonna’ lie, I got all but half a dozen SSR bases and two of the old S.H.I.E.L.D. bases large enough for me to run my network,” Essie deadpanned, “I stay here as a favor to you and the Avengers, mostly as a favor to Steve so he doesn’t have to hop on a jet once a week so I can give him the intel that your network is too incompetent to pick up.”

“You’re already part of the team, just put your network into the Avengers and-“ Tony tried to argue but Esmeralda wasn’t hearing it.

“No, Tony. I’ve worked with your father and I’ve worked with you and as much as you hate to hear it it’s _exactly_ the same. Eventually you misuse the power and wealth you have and somebody from the outside needs to come in and clean up the mess, hell I’m still cleaning up after Ultron and who the hell do you think cleaned up after that fiasco with Stane selling your weapons under the table?” she explained, “You mean well but your judgement needs work, which is exactly why we didn’t want you leading the Avengers.”

Tony took a deep breath, took a minute to compose himself, before replying, “You know, nobody actually _says_ that to me. They think it, but they don’t say it. Not sure I like it…I appreciate it, I needed to hear it, but I don’t really like it.”

“Welcome to the real world where people that _aren’t_ you hold you accountable for your own actions. Now if you don’t mind I’ve got a dicey operation in Bogota involving taking down a drug ring that somehow survived their previous leader getting his head punched off by a Hydra-controlled cybernetic super-soldier two years ago and I’ve got a meeting with Steve this afternoon to look over our gathered intelligence and decide who takes what baddie. I don’t have time for your bi-weekly ‘do what I want because we're friends’ spiel,” Essie replied as she pushed herself away from the reception desk and walked back into the office building and to her private control room on the second floor. 

She liked Tony, she did, he was brilliant and his heart was in the right place.  It was his approach that needed work, along with that stubborn insistence that he was always right.  If he could just learn to listen and accept real, honest advice for what it really was or listen to the opposing side of an argument, it would be a different story...sort of.  For now, Essie still had firm plans to keep her business separate from the Avengers, not for her wants but for the safety of everyone involved.  The last thing she needed was knowing her business had been what harmed her friends, especially Wanda or Steve.

“Boss, I made sure former Director Carter’s medical bills were paid off like you asked, but Romanoff just reported they’re on their way back to the base. Apparently there was an issue during the mission, in the process of saving Rogers and the surrounding bystanders Maximoff sent Rumlow and his explosive into the air and it went off. Killed multiple civies, wounded most of them, and I thought you should know a lot of them were Wakandan.”

Esmeralda groaned as she took the tablet from one of her office assistants, a poor boy that had recently graduated from S.H.I.E.L.D. Communications Academy only a month before it was taken down, and scrolled through the news reports that were already filing in.

“ _Fuck_. The Wakandans were already riding our asses about Ultron fucking with their Vibranium and Hulk and Iron Man tearing up their city, only a matter of time before something comes out of this,” Esmeralda sighed as she looked over the latest emails Wakandan ambassadors and the Wakandan King were sending and the phone calls the King was making, “And we were already on borrowed time as it was. While I’m dealing with Bogota get me a list of the UN delagates we’ve already got under our belt and the list of potentials. I want eyes on this at all times. We have to try to get ahead of this, if that’s even possible, and if Rogers shows up send him up to my drawing room. If he doesn’t wait until this evening to call him over, he’s gotta deal with the team moral before we can even attempt to tackle this.”

“Right away, ma’am.”

“And stop calling me _ma’am_ , I hate that.”

“Yes ma-…I mean boss.”

In the end, it didn’t matter what Essie did to try to stem the tide or how many UN officials she had in her pocket, it was already too late. It was the beginning of the end.


	12. Wide Awake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Accords were set, either they signed or retired. Problem was, they didn't want to do either.
> 
> That wasn't the only bad news they would get that night either.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wide Awake by Katy Perry. Fitting for the rude awakening they receive after thinking things were going well.
> 
> Short chapter, I know. I considered making it longer but it seemed like it was dragging on when I added the first part of chapter 13.

# Chapter Twelve

### Wide Awake

“I thought you said you were going to get ahead of this,” Steve said when they were alone in Esmeralda'. He was sitting behind his desk, more like slouching, and it was clear the Sokovia Accords had hit him like a freight train. After the meeting, as the rest of the team had expected, the legendary agent and the historic soldier stepped away from the rest of the team to speak in private.

“I _tried_ , getting a UN delegate of any kind under your belt is hard, let alone someone with any real pull, and when Wakanda speaks the world listens. I don’t think even S.H.I.E.L.D. could have stopped this one, not with _Ross_ behind it, the big wast of space,” Esmeralda explained, sitting across from him with her black high-heel clad feet crossed at the ankle and resting on Steve’s desk. Steve had long since forgone attempting to get Esmeralda to stop putting her feet on his desk, especially since she did it on her own desk.  Steve wasn't going to ask why Essie seemed to have a personal vendetta against Ross, even though he was well-aware of the hell Ross had put Bruce through.  It was a good thing Natasha didn't know.  Considering Natasha's feelings for Bruce, Steve didn't want to _think_ about what she would do.

“Do you have a plan?” Steve would admit he was hopeful, Esmeralda always had a plan, she had a backup plan, she had a backup plan for the backup plan, and if that failed she was a master at improvising a plan. As a battle strategist, political disputes were a little out of Steve’s realm of expertise. Still, if anyone knew how dangerous the Accords could be it was Essie and if she had tried something as desperate and dangerous as manipulating the UN…

“Yeah, you and anyone else that isn’t signing it retires while I go underground and start to poke holes until I can get the Accords thrown out,” Esmeralda answered simply, “It’s literally all we can do.”

“If you do that you’ll become an international criminal.”

“Did you miss the part where I said it is _literally_ all we can do? Because I know you don’t need your hearing checked-“

“We’ve already gotta’ worry about who finds Bucky first I don’t need to worry about people finding you too. We need another plan,” Steve argued, “Buck will _kill_ me if he finds out I let you risk yourself like that.”

Steve was standing firm, noticeable by the fact that he was using his ‘Captain America’ tone. Esmeralda sighed, took her feet off of the desk and sat upright as she looked Steve in the eyes. That was a cheap shot mentioning Bucky like that, but that just meant Steve was desperately trying to convince Essie not to put herself on the line like that. She’d admit, she didn’t like it either, but what else was there to do? There really weren’t any other _good_ options for them, not if they wanted to stay in the game without the UN using them for their political goals and she wasn’t going to just disappear.  She couldn't disappear after barely two years of running her own network. What kind of message would that send? There had to be some way to convince-

“Boss, there’s something you need to know,” a voice said after a quick knock at the closed door. It was one of Esmeralda’s agents, specifically one that doubled as an agent for the Avengers. Steve couldn’t claim to know every agent on the premises, but the concerned furrow of Esmeralda’s brow told him that she recognized the voice. Essie stood up and opened the door as her agent, a pretty blonde that had worked in S.H.I.E.L.D.’s Investigations division, specifically the Surveillance department, looked down sadly as she talked with her boss in hushed voices. She nodded before leaving as Essie shut the door.

Steve’s concern only rose when Essie turned around, her eyes downcast as she bit her bottom lip in an effort to hold back her emotions. She looked at Steve with tearful eyes. As if the Accords hadn’t already ripped the rug out from under their feet.

“We lost Peggy.”


	13. I Will Find You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As the Sokovia Accords loomed over their heads and they sat in Peggy's funeral, Essie was positive things couldn't have gotten worse. That was before the explosion in Vienna and Essie, Steve, and Sam were thrown into a race to find Bucky before literally anyone else in Europe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'I Will Find You' by Zedd and featuring Matthew Koma and Miriam Bryant is one of my favorite songs and considering the story, it was only a matter of time until it became the title of one of these chapters.
> 
> This chapter is a little more lighthearted, comparatively speaking.

# Chapter Thirteen

### I Will Find You

The day couldn’t get worse. Esmeralda had gone behind Steve’s back and sent her network underground, scattering her agents and personnel all over the globe and making a plan to obliterate her base on the Avengers’ Compound-a plan which Barton would be briefly brought out of retirement for. Her best agents, strategists, and legal minds were already put into action finding a way to tear apart the Sokovia Accords. She had done everything Steve had told her _not_ to do. To top it off, it was Peggy’s funeral and sitting next to her friend didn’t help as much as she had hoped and that was her own damn fault. If she hadn’t gone behind Steve’s back, maybe she would have felt better.

All she wanted to do was go home, pull out that old bottle of whiskey Peggy, Howard, and Essie had bought to save for a special occasion and drink the whole damn thing.

The world had other plans.

It was all over the news, Bucky Barns a.k.a. the Winter Soldier had attacked the signing of the Sokovia Accord in Vienna. Esmeralda had already sent the texts to her agents in Eastern Europe.

_Investigate bombing. Find Barnes. Top priority._

“Get me everything the CIA has on him,” Essie said to Sharon as she left the hotel room without another word. Steve looked at Sharon, who was already on the phone calling records and jumping through hoops to get everything the CIA had on Barnes.

“Essie!” Steve called as he jogged to catch up to the agent, “Sharon works for you?”

“Of course she does, why else would someone as good as her sign up for the CIA?” Essie retorted, “My network’s already underground, the second Sharon gets us that file we’ll find Barnes within the hour.”

“Under-I told you not to-“

“And right now our only saving grace is the fact that I ignored you,” Essie snapped, turning on her heel to face the soldier, “Face it, Steve, we’re going against the law, _again_ , and I don’t think we’ll find someone willing to let us hide out in their apartment this time. So, unless you have anything else that’ll save Bucky I’m going to promptly _ignore_ your impossible request.”

Steve stayed silent, but Essie noticed the way his jaw clenched. He knew they had gotten lucky when Sam helped them out last time, and there was no chance of that happening this time.  He was angry, he would be for a while, but he didn’t have any good arguments. Essie was right, and Steve hated that most of all. He just took a deep breath and looked away before looking back at Essie and asking, “What now?”

“Change, make sure nobody recognizes you. Ditch your phone, I’ll get you a new one, and meet me at the café down the street,” Essie ordered before leaving the hotel. Steve made one last phone call before he ditched his phone. He called Natasha, attempting to plead his case, attempting to convince her to join their side, help them so Essie didn’t have to put herself on the line like she was, but it was a no-go. He knew it was a lost cause, but he had to try.

Steve entered the café, where Essie, Sam, and Sharon were waiting for him. He saw Essie casually looking over the file as she typed something into her phone.

“Here,” Sam said as he handed Steve his new phone, “I ain’t teaching you how to use it old man.”

“Ha-ha,” Steve retorted dryly, “Can they track these?”

“They can try, but they’ll just think we’re average citizens calling their family and friends,” Essie replied as she shut the file, “Disguising the call is safer than hiding it, the absence of a trail is more suspicious than a trail they can follow.”

“You really have thought of everything…” Sam trailed off before adding, “Anyone ever tell you that you’re terrifying?”

“No, everyone’s too scared to talk to me,” Essie joked as she got up and made sure there was no trace left behind as they left, “There’s a car waiting for us in the parking garage, first floor on the east end, we’re taking a road trip to Bucharest.”

“Bucharest? Ain’t that a bit far for someone who attacked Vienna this morning?” Sam asked, just to clarify.

“It’s not _impossible_ , it's just a four-hour flight. But Barnes wouldn’t risk a flight, which leaves either a 10-hour bus or train, or a 12-hour drive,” Sharon explained, as they walked down the street to the inconspicuous sedan parked in the parking garage, “I’ll stall things as best as I can but I can only give you a few hours at most.”

“Thank you for this,” Steve stopped before he got into the blue sedan as he and the blonde agent awkwardly tried to figure out what to do. As much as Essie would have loved to wait for them to at least hug, if not kiss, they didn’t have the time.

“Hey, get your hormones back in your pants! We’re on the clock!” Essie snapped from the driver’s seat.

“The way you drive you’ll get there in two hours,” Sharon retorted as Steve backed away and ducked into the car.

“Hey, you mock but I’ve never been in a car accident that didn’t involve an RPG or an assassin on the roof of the car,” Essie retorted as she started the car. She pulled out in one swift movement, missing her agent in the CIA easily, before speeding off.

“Slow down! Your driving is gonna’ kill us before anyone else has the chance!”

“Shut it Feather Brain!”


	14. God Must Hate Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As if the week couldn't have gotten any worse...
> 
> Fun fact, while agents accept that their career choice will likely end in getting shot at, that doesn't mean they like getting shot at.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like 'God Must Hate Me' by Simple Plan really says it all for Essie, especially as she keeps getting stuck having to keep up with super soldiers that never listen to her, Kings dressed up as cats with Vibranium claws, and getting shot at by pretty much everybody.
> 
> P.S. shameless plug but I'm going to be starting a new story soon (even though I really should be working on literally any other story I've already posted) titled 'Downside-up' so stay tuned for that!

# Chapter Fourteen

### God Must Hate Me

Tracking down the ratty apartment Barnes had been hiding in didn’t take much once they reached Bucharest, honestly the hardest part was staying hidden in their suits. Well, it was hard for Sam and Steve. Essie, since her career began, had been sticking to wearing all black. Black leather pants, black light-weight combat boots with an eight-inch knife hidden in one of them, a black leather halter-top corset that wrapped around her neck like a choker, a black leather jacket with a hood, and black gloves. Her black belt held the tools she found most useful over the years, extra clips for the handguns strapped to action holsters on her thighs, a zip-line, smoke bombs, small explosives, and her throwing knives.

Her long brown hair was tied up in a ponytail and her pale green eyes were surrounded by a simple black mask, and she examined the apartment carefully. The only furniture was a plain mattress on the floor, the windows were covered in newspaper. Two exits, the main door and one in the back. He wasn’t planning on leaving but he was _ready_ to leave. The most curious was the notebook on top of the fridge, and it had caught Steve’s attention as well. He had picked up the small book and began flipping through as Essie took the pamphlet from the exhibit in the Smithsonian, they barely recognized Sam warning them that German Special Forces were on their way. She was right, he had been there, and she had been right when she followed his trail to eastern Europe where the trail disappeared. She had been so close, if only…

They weren’t alone. He had been silent as he entered, but Essie had enough experience to know when someone was sneaking up on her, or trying to. She spun around to catch him as he walked into the apartment, causing Steve to turn around himself. This was the moment that Essie had both been longing for and dreading. She wanted to find Bucky, she had ever since she found out he was her soulmate, but she had hoped to find him at a time that wasn’t so dangerous for both of them.

The three of them stood there, looking at each other without saying a word.

“Do you remember me?” Steve asked carefully. Essie had already told him to approach Bucky first, soulmates or not Essie didn’t know Bucky nearly as long as Steve had.

“You’re Steve, I read about you in a museum,” Bucky answered, simply and carefully.

 _“They’re setting a perimeter,”_ Sam warned them over coms.

“I get you want to be careful but I think we all know that’s only part of the truth,” Essie replied, “If you didn’t know who we are you would have let us die back in D.C.”

 _“They’re entering the building,”_ Sam updated them.

“I wasn’t in Vienna, that wasn’t me I don’t do that anymore.”

“We know, but the people who think you did are coming here now, and they’re not looking to take you alive,” Steve warned his friend as Essie’s brow furrowed and she carefully stepped towards the back door. She silently opened the door and pulled one of her handguns out of the holster, German Special Forces were already there. It was too late for them to get out without a fight.

She aimed her gun, took a slow deep breath, and-

_Bang!_

The guys heard the flash-bang grenade go off outside the apartment and the panicked cries of the soldiers outside, flash-bang grenades weren’t supposed to go off in your hands and when they did it hurt like a bitch and stunned everyone around you. It wouldn’t last forever. Essie rushed back inside, just as special forces began beating down the front door. Bucky threw the small kitchen table against the door to delay the forced entry

“No way too late to sneak out, we have to go. _Now_ ,” Essie ordered, “The team at the back entrance is stunned but we’re only going to have an easy way out for a few minutes at most.”

Using her free hand, she reached for Bucky’s shoulder to pull him along, they didn’t have time for dawdling, but he pushed her back and down so she was pinned down against the floor. It was instinct, the way she reacted, but the barrel of her gun was pressed against the left side of Bucky’s abdomen and they already knew the safety was off.

“Don’t make this harder than it already is,” Essie pleaded, taking her finger off of the trigger but keeping her gun in place. They would both be lying if they claimed they had never tried to kill each other before. Hell Essie had practically become S.H.I.E.L.D.’s answer to the Winter Soldier over the decades and they had given each other plenty of scars. Of course, that just made the whole soulmate thing that much more complicated. Like it wasn’t complicated already.

Bucky just took a moment to look past Essie’s mask into her pleading pale-green eyes before punching through the wooden floorboard next to her head and pulling out a bag packed specifically for such an occasion. He stood up, or he was going to. The back door crashed open and Essie flipped the two of them over so she was straddling Bucky and turned at the waist to take a shot at the intruding soldier’s knee to keep him from getting up after Steve knocked him out. She got up quickly but Bucky was faster, grabbing his bag and tossing it out the back door with enough force to land on the roof of the adjacent building. They had a moment to catch their breath…

 _Half_ a moment…not even that.

More soldiers came crashing in through the windows and Bucky threw Essie back as he blocked the shots with his metal arm until Steve could jump in with his shield. Essie appreciated the save, but she didn’t appreciate being thrown on her ass. That notion was quickly forgotten when another soldier came in from the back door behind her. She tumbled back and landed a kick against the soldier’s sternum, knocking him back, before following through the tumble and landing on her feet to snatch his rifle and hit him in the stomach and chin with the butt of his own gun. She barely caught sight of Steve being thrown back before she saw Bucky break the door down and rush into the hall.

 _Fuck_ it was a mess, the three of them fighting their way down the small stairwell with Bucky leading the way as Essie and Steve cleaned up after him. Essie dashed after Bucky just in time to see him leap off of a balcony and land on the same roof his bag had landed on. Essie looked down to check the stability of the railing around the balcony before looking back at the roof across the street. It would be close, but she could make it. She grabbed her zip-line and shot it into the highest point of the building across the street before securing the other end to the railing.

It was already more than complicated enough, then the damn Black Panther had to show up. Over the years Essie had come across former Black Panthers, leaving her to assume the latest one was the new King of Wakanda. She felt bad for him, losing his father the way he did, but that didn’t stop her from letting go of her zip-line early to kick him away from Bucky. Essie rolled into her landing and got up just in time to duck and dodge the Panther’s attacks. She didn’t bother trying to punch him, if Bucky couldn’t do much damage with his own attacks there was no way in hell Essie was going to be able to do anything against that Vibranium armor, not with her bare hands anyway.

She would just have to improvise with a small explosive stuck on one of the creases of his suit. It wouldn’t do much damage unless she could get more explosives in more creases of the suit but that became a lot harder when a chopper began shooting at them.

 _“Sam!”_ Steve called as he leapt from the apartment building to the rooftop Bucky and Essie were currently trapped on.

 _“On it!”_ Sam replied as he flew win at high speeds to kick the tail of the chopper and throw it off balance, giving Essie enough time to set off the small explosives before grabbing Bucky and pulling him away from the fight.

Carefully jumping their way down the building was a fairly simple feat for the assassins, it was when Bucky jumped into a four-lane road where Essie had some trouble.

“Goddamn super soldiers jumping into traffic like they’re invulnerable to getting hit by a goddamn car!” Essie snapped as she timed her jump carefully to land on top of one of the cars only seconds after Bucky had jumped. Sure, it wasn’t much safer, but nearly _anything_ safer than jumping _in front_ of a moving car. Then the Panther and Steve went sprinting past and she took enough time to let out a groan of disgust.

“This is going to suck,” Essie muttered before carefully jumping from the roof of the car she was on to one of the vehicles the special forces were tailing the boys in. She clung to the roof of the car as she opened the door to the rear passenger door and slipped inside.  
Three soldiers, one in the back and two in the front. She dodged the soldier in the back as she unbuckled his seatbelt and opened the door to kick him out of the car. As she reached over to close the door again she kicked the soldier in the front-passenger seat as he was aiming at her. He didn’t drop the gun but he was stunned long enough for Essie to kick him two more times, once in the neck and once in the face, to knock him out. She ducked as the driver attempted to elbow her as she snatched the Taser from the soldier in the front passenger seat as she unbuckled his seatbelt and yanked him out of his seat and into the back seat, throwing the driver off balance and giving Essie an opening to hit him in the neck with the Taser.

Of course, that sent the car out of control, which gave her seconds to slip into the front seat to grab the wheel and slam on the brakes before slipping into the passenger’s seat as Steve yanked the door open from outside and pulled the driver out of the car before hopping in. They sped through the streets, only to jump out of the car and barely avoid being hit by it as it flipped over itself. They skidded to a halt when they finally caught up to Bucky and the Black Panther, who had been cut off by local police cruisers, more special forces, and War Machine.

Apparently 90 years’ worth of anecdotes wasn’t enough proof that god, whoever or whatever he or she really is or was or will be, hated Essie with the burning passion.


	15. Thnks fr th Mmrs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just as they found Bucky, they were all cornered and captured by the CIA with the Black Panther on their tails. They had to get out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you haven't heard 'Thnks fr th Mmrs' by Fall Out Boy, you really should.

# Chapter Fifteen

### Thnks Fr Th Mmrs

Esmeralda didn’t mind being told to change into civilian clothing, but she _did_ mind having to do it in a moving van with Steve, Sam, and T’Challa. Seriously? This couldn’t have waited until they got to Berlin? They already took every weapon and took they found on her, it’s not like a change of clothes would stop her from starting a fight if she wanted to. She was always dressed for a fight, even in the skinny-jeans and sheer black sweater that clung to her form with sleeves that fell down to cover the palms of her hands and allowed the faintest view of her black bra and…was that a tattoo on her...did she have a tramp stamp? She had mentioned a party phase and a crazy undercover mission as a band groupie, but they didn't expect to find a tattoo. Clearly she was planning on throwing her sweater on over the corset of her suit instead of handing the corset of her suit over to the CIA, especially since her change of attire required a change of _bra_. That was awkward.

The guys didn’t ask about the tattoo, though, especially when she slipped her combat boots back on. One thing they had known about Essie from the start, if she’s wearing combat boots she’s got a knife on her, and if she’s got a knife on her she can and will kill you given the right incentive. Sam decided to focus his attention on… _other_ problems.

“So you like cats,” Sam more stated than asked as he glared at the king of Wakanda from behind.

“Sam-“ Steve attempted to stop him.

“What? Dude shows up dressed like a cat, you don’t wanna know more?” Sam retorted.

“Your suit, it’s Vibranium?” Steve asked, less confrontational than Sam. Though, that didn’t take much.

“The Black Panther has been the protector of Wakanda for generations, a mantle passed from warrior to warrior. And now because your friend murdered my father, I also wear the mantle of king. So I ask you, as both warrior and king…how long do you think you can keep your friend safe from me?” T’Challa asked, turning to face Steve.  
The king didn’t expect the woman sitting near silently in the back of the van to answer, and certainly not in T’Challa’s native tongue.  That just made the way she stared at him with her pale green eyes more unnerving.

“ _Long enough for me to turn you into a non-issue_ ,” Essie replied calmly as she turned away from the window to stare at the new king, “ _Your highness_.”

 

As they got out of the van Steve and Essie looked at the secure pod Bucky was secured in.

“He can break out of there,” Essie commented as she looked it over.”

“What?” Steve questioned as she looked down at the agent.

“We don’t even have a real grasp on how strong you are, you keep surprising us, and I’ve personally seen him break out of containment pods Howard designed with you in mind,” Essie explained, keeping her voice low as they walked up to the Deputy Task Force Commander Berlin and Agent Sharon Carter, “With his strength and his training he can break out of there.”

“What’s gonna’ happen to him?” Steve asked sternly, in his patented ‘Captain America’ tone, as they approached the short man dressed in a crisp gray suit.

“Same thing that ought to happen to you. Psychological evaluation then extradition,” he answered sharply, simply. He was a small man in a room of giants and still held his head high. Essie had to respect that, to a point. There was a confidence about him that was misplaced, at best, and dangerous to all of them, at worst.

“This is Everett Ross, Deputy Task Force Commander,” Sharon introduced her boss simply, trying to make peace where she could.

“Extradition implies you have a place in mind,” Essie pointed out as she looked around. Perhaps it was her decades of experience in the field, perhaps it was the fact that S.H.I.E.L.D. had only been run by Directors who expected nothing but the absolute best, but it took everything in her not to grimace. The CIA was one of if not the best organization of government agents now that S.H.I.E.L.D. was gone, but just standing in the ornate garage Essie found at least three escape routes. Hopefully things improved as former S.H.I.E.L.D. agents within the CIA moved up the chain of command, if not there was no way they could continue to battle the remnants of Hydra without letting the Avengers and Esmeralda Faria’s network loose on the world.

The Deputy Commander wasn’t a fool, he noticed the tone in Essie’s voice. The CIA was aware of the fact that Faria had created her own network to work in tandem with the Avengers, and they figured that Faria’s network hadn’t disbanded when she chose not to sign the Sokovia Accords. Still, the implication that she knew the CIA had no good place to send Barnes after his evaluation was disturbing. Members on the task force didn’t even know that.

“See their weapons are placed in lockup,” Ross ordered.

“I better not look out the window and see anybody flying around in that,” Sam threatened as he saw agents carrying his wings into lockup. Essie was half tempted to see which of her agents in the CIA were willing to break into the lockup and snatch their weapons. She decided against it, and regretted that decision later.

They walked down the halls to the offices they were going to be kept in, meeting up with Natasha on the way. They caught Tony on the phone, ensuring Secretary Ross that there would be consequences, and Essie couldn’t help but roll her eyes. One way or another, they would be out of there before anyone could begin talking about possible consequences. Essie would make sure of that. She had started planning when they were captured on the highway.

If only things had gone even _half_ as smoothly as she had planned...


	16. Part Of Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony tries desperately to convince Esmeralda to sign the Accords, something that she will not do-not like this. Not while she's trying to figure out why her gut is telling her something is disastrously wrong.

# Chapter Sixteen

### Part Of Me

“Let me guess, Steve wouldn’t sign the Accords,” Essie smirked as Tony entered the office Essie was being kept in. For the time being, until Tony and Natasha had attempted convincing the three former Avengers to sign the Accords, they were kept separated. Natasha followed Tony into the office shortly after.

“Oh, am I getting lectured by mommy _and_ daddy? Aren’t I special?” Essie joked, earning disgruntled glares from both the spy and the genius.

“Do you have any idea how much trouble you’re in? How much of a threat everyone thinks you are?” Natasha asked as she stood behind one of the seats to Essie’s left. Essie had sat herself down at the head of the table, her legs crossed, and there was some space between her and the table itself. Essie just turned her chair to face Natasha. Tony had sat down to Essie’s right but had yet to say anything.

“Well, I have been in the spy game for a while,” Essie replied lightheartedly as she feigned thoughtfulness, “Longer than you two have been alive, actually.”

“Faria-“

“You, my father, and Peggy started S.H.I.E.L.D. to protect the world. That’s what we’re trying to do,” Tony urged as he leaned forward against the table.

“We formed S.H.I.E.L.D. because people with the skills to react to a situation properly needed the freedom to do so, a freedom that even the SSR didn’t have,” Essie replied seriously, turning her head to look at the man she had watched grow up, “I’ve seen where the Sokovia Accords will end up, I’ve seen the death and destruction plans like this can and _have_ caused. I’m not letting that happen again and while we’re on the subject, don’t think I don’t know about Wanda’s house arrest. Like the kid didn’t feel bad enough, like she hasn’t been put through enough.”

“What will get you to sign the accords?” Tony sighed heavily. If they could say that Agent Esmeralda Faria had signed the Accords they could bring so many more people into the Accords, they could do so much good. She was just being so damn stubborn that things were going to end up like they had before. This was different from what they had done before.

Essie thought carefully as she turned to look at Tony, considering the offer seriously.

“I’m allowed to investigate situations and manage my network as I please, just because I sign doesn’t mean my network signs with me. Wanda will be let free of her ridiculous sentence of house arrest and until she decides to sign the accords herself she is placed under either my or Steve’s supervision. Most importantly, Barnes is put into the custody of me and my people,” Essie replied.

“I’ll easily be able to put Wanda under your supervision _after_ you sign the Accords, but I can’t do the other stuff. Your network isn’t a government agency, it isn’t even an _agency_ , it doesn’t even have a team name. There’s no way I can convince them to let it loose on the world let alone hand Barnes over to you,” Tony replied, “There’s got to be some middle ground.”

“Tony I’ve trusted other people to run the world for the last 50 years even when I was told to run the world. As a result, I saw everything I had worked for be taken over by everything I was fighting and the only thing I could do was burn it all down,” Essie explained, simply but softly. It was the first time she had ever really told anyone what she went through two years prior. It had been implied but nobody ever asked how she was doing, not really, and she had never brought it up. They knew she had been angry, that much was obvious with how she hunted Hydra down. They knew she had been upset for a few weeks. She never implied that it still haunted her, two years later.

“There never is one perfect solution that will fix everything,” Essie said as she looked down at her right hand resting on the table, “Trust me, I’ve tried pretty much everything short of finding an actual wish-granting genie, and that’s only because I can’t find one. There is nothing that can mend relationships with people you love, help you deal with your guilt, and fix the world all in one fell swoop.”

“That’s not what I’m trying-“

“Yes it is, Tony, and we both know it,” Essie said as she looked up and smiled softly, “I watched you grow up from when you were born all the way to taking over the company and that is one thing that has always been a constant with you. Just like your mom, your heart is always in the right place but you’re always looking for one big solution that will solve every problem, that’s what Ultron was, that’s what the Accords are, and that’s what this manhunt for Bucky was all about. Problem with that is, you’re too smart to really believe it’s all going to work. You want to believe it but no thanks to Aunt Essie you’ve got this nagging voice in your head telling you it’ll only work for a while, at best. You’ve seen the reports, you know that an agent you hired for the Avengers saw Bucky in Bucharest only a few hours after the bombing, you know there’s no way he could have committed the attack and gotten to Bucharest that quickly. Most importantly, you and I both know that it’s only a matter of time until the UN holds us back from where we need to be because they have a political agenda, and innocent lives are the way they want to accomplish it.”

“I’m going to make it work this time,” Tony vowed. It would work this time…right?

“I hope you do. I honestly hope I’m wrong about this, but I’m too old, stubborn, and set in my ways to sign up for something like this without seeing proof that it works. Until then, I can’t sign it.”

“I’ll keep you down as a ‘maybe,’ hopefully that’ll appease them for now,” Tony sighed as he stood up, “Ross has really got it out for you."

"Ross can bite my ass," Essie retorted as she got up, sending Tony into a fit of laughter he desperately needed as Essie snickered herself. She waved a quick goodbye as she followed Natasha into the central office where Steve and Sam were already waiting.

“I do hope you sign, if only to save yourself,” Natasha said, hopefully, “But for what it’s worth…I can’t help but shake this feeling that none of this is going to end well.”

“It’s not, and the problem is we’re the only ones with the experience to see that,” Essie sighed in agreement, “But for what it’s worth, you’re always welcome to come back and work for me, under the agreement that you never tell anyone my business or I will track you down and kick your ass for a minimum of an hour.”

“Just an hour? I was expecting three or four,” Natasha replied as she let out a small laugh, opening the door for Essie before closing it behind the older agent.

“Mom and dad both lecture you?” Sam asked briefly, hoping to distract Essie from whatever was making her tear up. She hated crying and whenever she was upset she never wanted to stay that way, she wanted something that would make her smile or at the very least keep her mind on something else. It was a trait Sam recognized because it was a trait they shared.

“Yeah, you know me. I'm the trouble child and mommy and daddy never know what to do with me,” Essie said casually as she used the long sleeve of her sweater to dab at her eyes as she sat down, “Normal stuff.”

They left it at that. Sometimes there were times when the best thing to say was nothing at all.

“A receipt for your gear,” Sharon said as she handed the paperwork for all three of them to Sam.

“Bird costume?” Sam questioned accusingly as he looked it over. He wasn’t even going to bring up what they wrote about Essie, she was already in a foul mood and the last thing they needed was her waging an all-out war. Who knew how many double agents she had?”

“I didn’t write it,” Sharon defended.

Essie and Steve never turned to greet her, just continued to watch the screens on the far wall showing the security camera feed of Bucky in the pod. Sharon noticed this and knew Essie wasn’t going to request anything that would put Sharon in too much risk of blowing her cover. Sharon acted on her own as she kept an eye on her surroundings and covertly turned on the speakers so they could hear Barnes’ interrogation. It was heartbreaking, the way Bucky insisted that they call him Bucky, not James Buchanan, not Sergeant Barnes.

Almost 100 years old and Essie still trusted her gut when things didn’t feel right. This was one of those times. Every expert analyst Essie had ever met only worked off of the file they were given and even the FBI would have made an attempt to confiscate his suitcase, which meant the CIA obviously would have done so. What kind of hoops would he have had to jump through to get it inside with him? Why would he have gone so much effort to do that?

“I couldn’t find Bucky in two years, suddenly we find him in less than a day,” Essie brought up, “All because I didn’t have 7 billion people to look for him.”

“Fastest way to find him, fastest way to find anybody,” Steve agreed as they turned around to face the others.

“Exactly. We all know there’s no way Bucky could have been in Vienna so how the hell did we end up with his face at the scene of the crime?”

“He was framed,” Steve agreed.

“We looked for him for two years,” Sam brought up exactly what Essie had said earlier.

“Assassin 101, hide from assassins but don’t hide from civilians because they’re stupid and unless you’re walking down the street in a costume or with an arsenal, they won’t know the difference and you can use them to blend in,” Essie explained, “Until you get your face on the media.”

“That doesn’t guarantee that whoever framed him would get him,” Sharon pointed out, “It guarantees that we would.”

"Exactly," Steve agreed as he and Essie watched the footage of the interrogation on the screen behind Sharon.

The power to the entire facility was cut.

Only four years until Essie was 100 and her gut instinct couldn’t tell her something was wrong early enough that she could figure it out before it happened?

Just once.


	17. Panic Switch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Essie's gut was right, things were terribly, terribly wrong and it was too late to prevent it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Panic Switch from the Sucker Punch soundtrack is an awesome song, though to be fair the whole soundtrack is pretty awesome.

# Chapter Seventeen

### Panic Switch

“Sharon we gotta’ find a ride out of here,” Essie said as she made her way to the door.

“We’ll get Bucky and meet you there,” Steve added, following them out.

“Sub-level five, east wing,” Sharon instructed the super soldier before following Esmeralda. They ran through the halls until they reached the garage. Sharon grabbed a gun from the weapons hanger and tossed it to Essie, who tucked it into the back of her jeans before they continued to the garage. Essie looked for the least noticeable car they could find. Sharon popped the hood and they got to work disconnecting the GPS and the alarm system. They weren’t mechanics so it took longer than they would have liked, thought they would have liked to have it finished in less than a single second.

“Barnes is loose, he’s attacking everyone in sight,” Sharon reported the status updates that had been coming through her radio.

“Come on, I have to go get Bucky, the second you’re clear get our gear out of lockup and get it to us, you know how to reach me,” Essie ordered as they left the car and sprinted to the main lobby off. they skidded to a halt when she reached the main lobby, catching Bucky as he held a gun to Tony. Essie grabbed her own gun and shot it just close enough to make Bucky drop the gun and catch his attention.

“Get the fuck out of here!” Essie ordered Tony as Bucky was approaching her, “Nat! Sharon! Get everyone clear! Now!”

“Follow me

Natasha didn’t like the plan, Esmeralda was going to snatch Bucky and disappear the second she had the chance, but they didn’t have any better options. It wasn’t a secret that Agent Faria and the Winter Soldier had been in a continuous battle with each other since the Winter Soldier’s first appearance decades ago. As much as Natasha hated it, Essie was the best one to deal with him and they had to minimize the collateral damage as much as they could.

They both landed their own punches, Essie wasn’t nearly as strong as Bucky was and she wasn’t as fast, but she was a hell of a lot smarter and knew how to improvise. Best of all, she knew what attacks to expect and what caught him off-guard, if only for a second. It was a close fight, at one point Essie picked up a nearby chair just to hit him with it. It broke, he had blocked the attack with his metal arm, but it had given Essie enough wiggle room to move around to where she was less-likely to get punched with a metal arm…

_Again._

Most shockingly, however, as they fought he wasn’t as brutal as he used to be.

This wasn’t working. They wouldn’t get anywhere. He kept attempting to knock her out or keep her pinned down and even if she had managed to knock him out there was no way she could carry him. Essie had to find something that would distract Bucky. The way he was heading, or attempting to go, and based on prior experience his training told him to go to the roof and either run across the rooftops or hijack the first aircraft he saw.

She’d never admit this, but T’Challa jumping in was exactly what she needed. Essie rolled out of the way and let the boys fight it out while she dashed up the stairs and to the roof. She wasn’t counting on Bucky being so close behind, but she probably should have. She had noticed a definite difference between the way Bucky fought and the way the Winter Soldier fought. Bucky was a brawler, there was no doubt about it, but the Winter Soldier was an assassin and like any half-decent assassin he knew when to disappear, how to disappear, and how to manipulate a fight for the perfect opportunity to disappear.

All the same tricks Essie taught herself when she was still living on the streets of New York, stealing with her brothers so the family could afford _food_ , let alone a roof to keep them dry.

The roof was made up of multiple levels, the staircase from inside the building rose from a dip in the roof and gave Essie a place to perch herself above the door. It would leave them fighting around and on the staircase, but it’s not like it would be the first time Essie fought on stairs. She shut the door behind her and climbed up to the top of the doorway, so she could wait for the right moment to strike. In a perfect world Essie would have more than a gun and a knife tucked into her boot, both weapons she didn’t want when she wanted her opponent alive. So, she had to improvise.

“If you ruin this sweater Bucky, soulmate or not I will rip your metal arm off and beat you to death with it,” Essie swore under her breath as she pulled her favorite black pullover off, leaving her in her bra. She didn’t like it, but wouldn’t be the first time she was exposed in order to win a fight, she had gone undercover as an underwear model in 2010 and had to spend hours covering up two scars on her back and one on her stomach, as well as her soul mark and of course she had to wake up at the ass-crack of dawn to get said makeup applied. Worst year _ever_.

She waited, crouched, with the ends of the sleeves of her sweater wrapped around her right hand as she held the bottom of her sweater with the other. Bucky threw the door open and stormed through, and the second he did Essie leapt down, wrapped her sweater around his neck and hung there. Of course he wasn’t going to just _let_ her strangle him, so he carried her up the stairs, pulled her off of him and tossed her sweater to the ground.

“That sweater better not be ripped, Barnes, I mean it,” Essie threatened, lying on the ground. She pulled her gun out from the waist of her jeans and pointed it at him. She wasn’t going to use it, but if she was going to have any chance she had to get him into a triangle hold and he would only approach if-

“ _Stay out of this_ ,” he ordered in Russian before making his way to the chopper.

“Hey!” Essie snapped, getting up, tucking the gun back into the waist of her jeans, and snatching her sweater off of the ground, “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

He ignored her, ripping the chord securing the door of the chopper, so Essie stormed forward and snapped at him again.

Bucky spun around and held her by the arm with his metal hand, tightly, and glared at her. That’s all he did, before his eyes trailed down to her soul mark. His brow furrowed, as if something inside was fighting whatever had taken control of him. It didn’t matter much at the moment; they didn’t have time to wait for him to come to his senses. Essie just took her gun in her free hand, held it by the barrel and-

“Essie…how…” Steve asked, slowing down to a walk as he joined the two on the roof. He caught Essie straightening her sweater and using it to cover the gun she had tucked into the waistband of her jeans, and Bucky was unconscious on the ground.

“I pistol whipped him in the temple. Figured it worked on Barton with Loki used his Glow-Stick of Doom to control him, it’ll work against entirely human methods of mind-control,” Essie explained, briefly, before asking, "What happened to you?  You look like you climbed a mountain with your bare hands."

"Close, it was the elevator shaft."

Wasn't he in sub-level five? Essie decided to ignore that and focus on more pressing matters.

“We can’t take the chopper out of here, too noticeable.”

Steve stepped to the edge to look over the roof, into the river, and said “So we jump.”

“And here I was hoping Erskine gave you the ability to fly.”


	18. House On A Hill

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They escaped, they were safe from detection for the moment. All they needed to do was wait for Bucky to wake up and hopefully provide them with answers. If only they knew the danger that those answers presented.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> House On A Hill by The Pretty Reckless fueled the beginning, specifically the dream. I had written the dream for an earlier chapter but had to take it out because it didn't fit. Glad I found a spot to use it, I hated scrapping it.
> 
> Dot, the Red Room graduate mentioned, is a character in Agent Carter and is a pretty important character. Agent Carter, who was attempting to clear Howard's name, was arrested by the SSR for working with Howard while he was still believed to be a criminal, also part of the Agent Carter series which was (and still is) my favorite of the MCU shows. The Dracula thing, that is actually part of the comics and I thought it was too cool not to include it even though it wasn't mentioned in the movies...yet...here's to hoping!

# Chapter Eighteen

### House On A Hill

 

They couldn’t travel farther than an abandoned warehouse in the industrial part of the city.  Luckily they had enough time for their clothes to dry, except Sam who didn’t have to jump into the river the lucky bastard.  Of course, Essie was left with a different problem with her hair.  She had to braid it while it was still wet in an attempt to keep it from drying into a frizzy, unmanageable mess.  The guys had sat Bucky down and pinned his metal arm down under heavy machinery, just in case Essie pistol whipping the amnesiac assassin in the head didn’t work.

They stayed hidden inside the warehouse, the three of them making plans on how to escape out of the city.  When Bucky was conscious and they knew he was himself, Steve would go out and steal a car for them while Essie contacted Sharon and set up a meeting place.  It was going to take a bit, Bucky was out cold before Steve took him and dove into the river-Essie had to climb down the building before diving in to prevent her death.

 

He was dreaming, he knew it was a dream.  It started out too perfect to be real.  Someone like him didn't deserve a happy ending like that.

_The war had been over for years, he had made it home alive and with all his limbs intact.  He was standing outside a nice two-story house with a literal picket fence, he walked inside and a little girl only three or four came screaming down the stairs and jumped into his arms calling out, “Papa!  Papa!”_

_His baby girl looked so much like her mother, save for her dark brown hair and big blue eyes.  She grinned up at him and giggled as he kissed her head and carried her to the back yard and there **she** was, his soulmate, a girl he had been head over heels for before he even knew her name.  Her long pale brown hair blew lightly in the breeze as she took the laundry down off of the clothes line and folded it neatly into a basket.  She was humming a tune to herself, from what he heard it sounded like ‘I Don’t Want To Walk Without You.’_

_She turned to look at him with those pale green eyes and smiled gently, kissing him to welcome him home, and that was when it all fell apart._

_The clouds turned dark and rain began to pour from the skies.  He looked up to make sure he wasn’t imagining the change and when he looked down, the whole world had changed.  A woman dressed in black was dashing across rooftops to get away and he gave chase.  She had stolen something and he needed to get it back, most importantly he had to kill her._

_He caught up to her easily and tackled her, pinning her down and wrenching her gun from her own hand before pressing the barrel against her torso.  He demanded to know where it was, even if he wasn’t exactly sure what it was, and she stayed defiant.  She did anything but look at him, looking around to find a way out.  So, to get her attention,_

_Bang!_

_She jumped, her muscles contracted at the impact and she let out a cry of pain, turning to seethe at him…_

_With pale green eyes…_

 

Bucky woke with a near-silent gasp, dazed as he looked around to assess the room.  Anything to get his mind off of the dream turned memory that had taken over his mind.  His left arm was pinned, that damned metal arm, and he heard footsteps approaching.  He looked up, leaning over as he tried to gather himself.  Every damn dream, every damn memory, they all shook him to his very core.

Steve, Sam, and Essie were front and center.  Essie had her right hand behind her and it was no doubt holding her gun.

_Good._

“Steve,” Bucky sighed heavily.

“Which Bucky am I talking to?” Steve asked.

“Your mom’s name was Sarah,” Bucky answered before letting out a little laugh, “You used to wear newspapers in your shoes.”

“I’m going to go out on a limb and assume they didn’t put that in the museum,” Essie replied as she took her hand off of her gun, “Kind of wish they did, though.”

“Wait, so just like that we’re supposed to be cool?” Sam questioned, looking at Essie and Steve.

“I know you’re new so let me just start by saying I met Natasha while we were trying to kill each other roughly four times a year and getting Clint into S.H.I.E.L.D. was an absolute disaster even by my standards, with his brother getting involved and all,” Essie explained briefly, “The whole ‘we were trying to kill each other yesterday and now we work together’ thing is pretty common in this line of work.”

She wasn’t even going to _start_ with dealing with Dracula during and after World War II or working with a Red Room graduate named Dot who had previously stolen all of Howard Stark’s weapons because he couldn’t keep it in his pants, or the fact that she had been arrested by the SSR _while_ she was working for the SSR.

“What did I do?” Bucky asked, dreading the answer.

“Nobody’s dead, from what I’ve heard,” Essie reported what her agents had told her, “But there’s more than enough damage to make up for that.”

“God,” Bucky hung his head, “I knew this would happen.  Everything Hydra put inside me is still there, all he had to do was say the goddamn words.”

“Who was he?” Steve asked, hoping to find and stop the man behind this latest disaster.  They had already tried following the CIA’s paperwork, their security footage.  They got nothing but a dead end so far.

“I don’t know.”

“Bucky he bombed the damn UN and cut off power to the whole city just to get 10 minutes alone with you.”  Essie stood firm, “We need better than ' _I don't know_.'”

“…He wanted to know about Siberia…where I was kept…where it was…” Bucky thought, recalling what had happened.

The only logical reason someone would want to know that was if there were more Hydra agents like Bucky, but after Howard was killed the serum was lost and all of his notes on the subject were destroyed-as per his request to Essie and Peggy, so why…                                      

_Oh god no…_

Around Christmas of 1991, Howard had recreated his own version of the Super Soldier serum, but it was unstable.  Eventually it sent the people who took it into an uncontrollable rage.  He was taking it to the Pentagon in the hopes that their experts would know how to counteract or even prevent it, but he and Martha were killed on the way, and the serum was stolen.  The investigation trail had gone cold; all they knew was the Winter Soldier was involved but they had no idea who had ordered or hired him to do the job.  No matter how much Peggy and Essie continued to follow it, but if Hydra had been inside S.H.I.E.L.D. all along it wouldn’t have been hard for them to hide the crucial evidence from the Director and her right-hand.

“There’s more,” Essie concluded in a hushed tone as her eyes widened and her brow furrowed, “And they’re psychologically unstable.”


	19. Here's To Never Growing Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grown-ass adults on the run from the whole damn world and in the beginning of a Civil War between the World's Mightiest Heroes, and they couldn't just grow up?

# Chapter Nineteen

### Here's To Never Growing Up

 

Essie thought the worst part would be the guilt she felt for pulling Clint out of retirement, or the fact that even though she felt Bucky’s eyes on her, the second she would turn to look at him he’d look away.  Or just the fact that when she called Bucky, Sam, and Steve ‘the boys’ in her mind she was being a _lot_ more accurate than she would have liked.  It was like dealing with _children_.

That was before Steve came back with the car he’d stolen.

“One job, one goddamn job, Rogers,” Essie groaned as she pinched the bridge of her nose.

“Does Bozo know you took his car or did you just hop in and take it in the middle of the show?” Sam asked as he looked the car over.  Bucky had no words, he thought Steve was helpless before, the dumb punk had run into an enemy base with a damn _prop_ helmet, but this…this was an entirely new level.

They had guys in armored metal suits that fly and Steve picks the one car that that even skinny little Essie would have to squeeze into.  Damn thing probably couldn’t go over 50 miles per hour either.

“It’s low profile-“

“The damn thing’s practically made of windows so clean they put the windows on Windex commercials to shame!” Essie barked, “Low profile is your average sedan, not this clown car and certainly not the pickup you stole _last_ time we were on the run!”

“Just get in the damn car,” Steve ordered, getting into the driver’s seat and waited for the other three to climb in.  It took a few minutes, and he caught a glance at Essie glaring at the other two until they climbed into the back seat before she got into the front seat and shut the door behind her.  She put her feet on the dash and began typing away on her phone, setting up a meeting place with Sharon.

“Take your feet of the dash.  We’re returning this,” Steve ordered, using his ‘dad’ tone.

“You said that last time, and if I remember correctly the car ended up the victim of a S.H.I.E.L.D. air strike.  I think some shoe-prints on the dash of a car we’re _so_ not returning are the very least of our worries,” Essie retorted, “Shut up, drive, and take the next left.”

As he started the car and put it in gear, Steve turned back to his childhood friend and snapped, “This little bundle of joy is officially _your_ problem now, good luck.”

“I’d tell you to ‘bite me’ but considering you’re an almost 100-year-old virgin that’s probably too kinky for you to handle,” Essie replied with a bored tone as she looked at the directions to the meeting point.  She couldn’t help but smirk when she heard the two men snickering behind her.  She looked up at Steve, who refused to take his eyes off the road as he continued to drive.  She heard it though, and Bucky caught it too, the labored deep breath Steve took as he kept himself from glaring at all three of them.  That just made the two snicker even more.

 

They met in an unpopulated part of town, underneath an overpass, and Essie locked her phone and tucked it into her back pocket as she looked at Steve expectantly.

“Go on,” Essie urged impatiently.

“What?  She’s your informant.”

“Yeah, but I’m comfy, the car is warm, and it’s chilly outside,” Essie replied, “So go, shoo, scoot.”

Steve’s brow narrowed as he continued, “But-“

Essie cut him off, snapping at him in Portuguese, and Steve got out of the car.  Essie just slid down further into the seat with her feet perched against the dashboard, just over the glove compartment.  She slowly took her hair out of the thick braid she had put it in and grimaced, it was still a little damp and it was still turning into a frizzy mess.  That was _exactly_ what she needed.

“Could you move over?” Bucky was getting really sick of Sam invading his personal space.

“No.”

So, Bucky pushed Sam to the other side of the small car.

"Hey!  You’re behind Essie, you’ve got all the leg room!”

“That’s not my-”

“I will rip you both out of this car and kick your asses until your teeth bleed,” Essie interjected.  The most terrifying part was she wasn’t even yelling, she just said it crisp and clear enough for them to hear.  They stopped and Bucky looked to Sam.

“She will, oh trust me she will,” Sam nodded, his eyes wide in what could only be described as fear, scooting over to his side of the car.

The trio in the car didn’t know it, but outside Steve and Sharon were talking about if they were going to be alright or not before their attention was caught by a budding conflict.  They didn’t hear what was said, but they knew was Essie had said one thing before the two stopped bickering and behaved themselves.

“I’m more worried about Essie killing them,” Steve answered Sharon’s inquiry before turning to her, concerned, “They’re going to come looking for you.”

“I know,” Sharon nodded lightly.  She waited, patiently, but expected Steve would just take the gear Sharon had stolen from CIA lockup and leave.  Instead, he surprised her, pulling her into a kiss that she was eager to return.  From inside the car they heard Essie.

 _"Fucking finally!_ ”

Steve just glared at Essie.  Seriously, she thought _the guys_ acted like children?


	20. We Found Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A small moment of silence and peace, a chance for the two soul mates to talk.

# Chapter Twenty

### We Found Love

 

They were parked in an empty parking garage, towards the top of the parking garage, and it was a good thing they were alone.  The last thing _any_ of them would have wanted was an audience to them falling out of the clown car.  They all stretched and popped the kinks in their joints as they groaned. 

“You’re officially _never_ allowed to do _anything_ without supervision,” Essie shot at Steve as she leaned backwards to pop a particularly nasty kink in her back.  No matter what she did, nothing worked.  She was just going to have to hope that she could get it out before they got stuck in a fight and go through her gear to make sure that everything was there.  As she rifled through her things she felt something in the pocket of her leather jacket…

“I’m gonna’ go for a walk, try to stretch, fix my bra,” Essie said as she tucked what she found into her back pocket before she walked back, “Hopefully find a bathroom so I don’t have to fix my underwear in an open space.  You know, girl stuff.”

Steve grimaced like he had just been shot, choosing not to say anything, Bucky just froze in the middle of attempting to stretch the muscles attached to his metal arm, that wasn’t something he had expected to hear at _any_ time of his life, and Sam just leaned over and hit his forehead against the roof of the car.  Essie snickered as she turned around and turned around to make her way up to the floor above.  For once she didn’t have any calls to make.  She was just going to get some peace, for once.

“You need to talk to her, Buck,” Steve said as he shot a pointed look at his childhood friend.

“Dammit, Steve,” Bucky sighed heavily, leaning forward against the roof of the small car, “I’ve tried to kill her, _multiple_ times.”

“Yeah, but she was trying to kill you too so that doesn’t really count,” Sam offered, “It’s like Mr. and Mrs. Smith.”

The two Super Soldiers looked at him with their own expressions of confusion, and that just made Sam sulk and sigh.  They had no damn clue what he was talking about.  That was gonna’ have to change when this was all over.  For now, they had to clear the awkward air between the soulmates.

“Look, we never would have found you before the Task Force without her help and she was risking everything defending you after _we_ were arrested,” Steve pointed out, “She’s spent her _entire life_ without her soulmate and unlike either of us she was awake and conscious for most of those 96 years, alone, watching everyone she loved age and die, and convinced that was going to be her life.”

“Steve-“

“No, Buck, I’ve been looking after her for the past four years, her best friend just died, she _needs_ you to get over your brooding and _talk_ to her you dumb jerk,” Steve lectured and before he forgot he added, “I know how… _batshit_ you were over her after spending one night just _talking_ and _dancing_ with her.  You were crazy about her the second you _saw_ her, Buck, just _go talk to her.”_

“Bucky and Essie sittin’ in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G.” Sam grinned at the assassin, who shot him a glare before shooting Steve a glare and leaving in the same direction as Essie.  He found her, on the next floor of the parking garage, leaning against the cement half-wall and looking off outside the parking garage.  Then he saw the puff of smoke and the small white cigarette in Essie’s delicate hand.

“You’re full of surprises,” Bucky commented as he walked up and leaned forward against the same half-wall only half of a foot away from Essie.

“That’s _my_ superpower,” Essie joked before adding, “Don’t tell Steve, I don’t wanna’ deal with the ‘that’s bad for you’ speech.”

“Oh trust me I’ve heard that about a million times, but you gotta’ do one thing.”

“What?” Essie asked, her brow furrowed in concern as she looked at her soulmate.

“Give me one,” Bucky said as he looked at Essie with that charming smile, which widened when he saw Essie’s expression of concern change to one of amusement and the way she laughed…

“Back pocket, the lighter’s in the box,” Essie said simply before turning back to look out over the wasteland they were hiding in.

“You sure?  That’s a little…” Bucky asked, his brow furrowed.  That just made Essie smile, it gave her hope.  He had been a confident ladies man when she met him, but he still had the same gentlemanly tendencies that Steve had.  Essie still remembered, though that night crossed her mind more often now than ever.

_The bar was slowly emptying out and it was getting easier and easier to hear the song playing.  It was a sign that time was moving on, no matter how Essie wanted everything to stop.  She had been weary about dancing with the man at all, being an immigrant from the streets of New York led to bad experiences, more than one assault which led to Essie pulling a knife or a gun, and it had left a bad taste in Essie’s mouth.  She had signed herself away to a life focused on her career and nothing else.  That all changed._

_His hold on her waist was firm but gentle, and didn’t stray below the curve of her waste, the hand holding her own was strong and rough but again his grip was gentle.  After a while they grew closer and her forehead was resting against his chest, a musky scent filling her senses and she closed her eyes and followed his steps as he gently nuzzled her hair before resting his chin on her head and swaying to the music.  Even when they parted ways, he asked if she wanted him to walk her back to her room simply because it was late at night and he was concerned, something no man had ever offered her before._

_"Skilled agent or not, it’s not safe for a dame like you to be walking around this late.”_

_“I’ll be safe, I’m just going across the street, but thank you.”_

_Bucky nodded, slowly removing his hands from their place on Essie’s waste before Essie pulled him down for a kiss.  Just one simple kiss, nothing rough and nothing beyond the simple pressure of her lips against his, and it was perfect._

“You have permission to touch my butt,” Essie teased lightly and Bucky chuckled and reached into Essie’s back pocket with his flesh hand.

“Good to know,” Bucky chuckled, pulling one of the white sticks out of the box and lighting it with the lighter he found inside, the logo on the lighter caught his eye and he had to ask, “The Walking Dead?”

“Yeah, you’ve got a few things to catch up on when we find somewhere safe.”

“Nowhere’s going to be safe, not with me,” Bucky replied, leaning forward against the half-wall and avoided eye-contact as his eyes fell.

“Hey,” Essie said as she stood upright and turned to face Bucky before ordering, “Turn around, look at me.”

Bucky did as he was told, not sure where Essie was going as she took one last drag and put out the cigarette and flicked it away.  She reached out and pulled up the black and maroon shirts Bucky had layered until she revealed the mark, the soul mark that matched her own.  His right side wasn’t nearly as scarred as his left but there were still scars, a stab wound here and a bullet wound there.  She placed her free hand over his mark, her cold hand pressing against his warm flesh, partially to make sure it was real before pulling her hand away and tapping Bucky’s mark with her index finger.

“This means something, we’re bound together forever, through life and death,” Essie said as she looked Bucky right in the eyes, “No matter what, I am yours and you are mine.”

Yes, it was a Game of Thrones quote, but it fit them a hell of a lot better than it did Jon Snow and Ygritte and it's not like Bucky would watch Game of Thrones any time soon.

He was in a trance, Essie had a way of doing that to him, and he watched as he reached down and lifted Essie’s black pullover to reveal her own mark.  He traced over it, gently, with his left hand before his eyes flitted back up to catch Essie’s again.

In an instant he was on her, his lips pressing against hers as he picked her up and pinned her behind the pillar behind her.  Essie wrapped her legs around Bucky’s waist and she locked her ankles behind her as Bucky held her up with his hands firm on the back of Essie’s thighs.  She ran her hands through Bucky’s hair, damn bastard had soft and manageable hair, and kept one hand tangled in his hair as the other gently cupped the side of his neck.

This kiss was far different, less reverent and more fervent, a desperate man grasping at humanity and comfort from the woman in his arms.  God he needed her, he _wanted_ her, and his hands slowly moved up from Essie’s thighs and began pushing her sweater back up with the goal of ripping it off of her head and-

“Hey!  Back-up’s here!  Let’s go!” Steve called, wandering around the floor trying to find the two, causing them to abruptly pull apart.  Bucky was clearly the more disgruntled of the two.

“I’m gonna’ _kill_ that little punk.”


	21. This Is War

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No matter how much they wanted to avoid it, to change the future, they couldn't. It was time for the war to truly begin.

# Chapter Twenty-one

### This Is War

 

Steve found Bucky and Essie together, leaning back against the half-wall to the outside and feared the worst, of course that didn’t explain why Bucky was glaring at _him_ instead of _Essie._   Steve didn’t ask, not after he noticed that Essie’s sweater was askew and Bucky’s hair was amess…then it all clicked.

Best not to say anything, lord knew Steve was already going to pay for this later.

The three of them walked back to the car in silence, and Essie groaned when she saw the white van.

“Oh my god, it’s like _none_ of you know how to pick a good getaway vehicle,” Essie groaned, like she was in pain, and that only got worse when she saw that Clint was the one that picked the van.  She _trained_ him for god’s sake, she _knew_ Barton knew better than to pick a shifty looking van.  At least Wanda was there, greeting the agent with a casual one-armed hug.

“What’s your impression of the new guy?” Essie asked quietly.  She had never actually met Lang, but Dr. Pym had given him the Ant-Man suit and he had kicked Sam’s ass to steal something from the compound.

“He’s a little…odd…”

“Great, because _odd_ is something we’re running low on.”

Lang was asleep in the back seat but jumped awake when he saw Captain America standing in front of him.  Wanda wasn’t kidding, he was _odd_.  He was so excited he was shaking Cap’s hand _way_ too long, turned around and told Wanda she was great, asked Essie for her autograph-though admittedly she later found out it was for his daughter.  Then he turned to Sam…

“Look, man, about last time-“

“It was a great audition, but it’ll never happen again,” Sam cut him off, hoping to avoid the embarrassment of anyone else finding out.  He should have known Essie already knew.

“Yeah it will.  He’s smart, thinks fast on his feet, and he’s got the suit to back him up,” Essie reasoned, “He’ll kick your ass.”

“Fuck you-“

They all stopped, looking up as an announcement came over the loudspeakers in the airport parking garage.  The tarmac was being cleared and all flights were either delayed or cancelled.  That could only mean one thing.

“Looks like Tony’s not gonna’ be making this easy,” Essie sighed, popping the trunk open and grabbing the gear she had asked Sharon to pick up for Bucky before tossing it to him.  She’d also requested a few other odds and ends for herself, specifically things her people working in the CIA R&D lab had come up with.  She had been hoping she wouldn’t need them.

Steve sighed before ordering, “Suit up.”

 

Steve and Essie were the first ones ready to go, the first two to make their way to the chopper they were hoping to use to get to Siberia.  That was before Tony shot the damn thing with an EMP and permanently grounded it.

“You know, you keep following us around like this and people will get the wrong idea,” Essie greeted, keeping her right hand poised on one of the gadgets on her black belt.  She was ready to use it, but again she was hoping she wouldn’t have to.  She was hoping she wouldn’t have to don her black pants, corset, jacket, mask, and upgraded gloves and boots until they reached Siberia.  So much for _that_ dream.

“Well, I was just thinking, it’s funny who you run into at the airport,” Tony replied with the same tone as Essie as he landed and Rhodey landed next to him, “Weren’t we just talking about that?”

“Yeah, it’s so funny.”

Essie watched from the corner of her eye as the Black Panther pounced his way to the scene and Essie couldn’t help but inwardly curse Tony.  He couldn’t just put the goddamn pieces together and get his head out of his ass for once.  For someone who claims to be a big screw up he never listens to advice.

“We already talked about this, we already know there’s no way Bucky could have bombed the UN in Vienna then been seen by _your_ agent only three hours later,” Essie explained, “You seriously, honestly, think he was the one behind the attack on the CIA?  There’s something bigger going on here, Tony, something worse.  You _know_ it.”

“Ross gave me 36 hours to bring you in.  That was 24 hours ago.  Can you help a brother out?” Tony requested, bluntly, and frankly he didn’t expect compliance.

“You’re after the wrong guy,” Steve pointed out.

“Your judgement is askew-“

“You’re following the orders of a man that personally terrorized Bruce for _years_ and turned a bloodthirsty mercenary into a creature called _Abomination_ because of a _personal vendetta_ and you’re saying _our_ judgement is askew?” Essie pointed out, “Big talk coming from the guy that made Ultron, even bigger talk considering Ultron’s brainwaves were based on _yours._ ”

Low blow, sure, but they didn’t exactly have time to play nice.

“Your buddy killed innocent people yesterday-“

“And there are more just like him, we have to get to them before the doctor does,” Steve argued again.  He was trying harder than Essie, though Essie had already expected this to end violently.  Suddenly, she was glad she had Sharon grab that new gear even if it meant Sharon and a few others had to stop spying on the CIA for her.  She had to be ready for anything.

Still, she hated this.  She had been looking after Tony since before his parents died and even more so afterwards.  She hated this, she hated kicking him where it hurt, but if she could just talk to him and get him to stop this then she wouldn’t have to fight him.  If making him desperate, so desperate that it showed like it was now, was a way to avoid a fight then Essie was all for it.

“Think about what’s going to happen, do you really wanna’ fight your way out of this one?” Natasha warned.  She wanted to fight just as much as Steve or Essie.

But she, just like they, knew that there was no other choice.

That was only proven when tony called Spiderman onto the scene.  He was more nervous than Scott was, and Essie knew why.

“A _child_?” Essie seethed, “It’s bad enough with Wanda but at least she’s old enough to _vote_ , let alone fight in a war.”

“I’m not a-“

“ _Stay out of this Parker!”_ Essie snapped, sure to use the boy’s real name.  Yes, she knew all about Spiderman.  She had thought, when she told Tony, they were under an agreement to wait until he was at least a legal adult.  That way they could approach him with the confidence that he’d be mature enough to make his own decision instead of letting Tony Stark swoon him into danger unlike he’d ever seen.  That way they knew he had a chance to have a childhood before he possibly died.

Apparently Essie was wrong.

“Y-you know-“ Peter was taken aback.  He was already surprised enough that Tony Stark figured it out but the fact that somebody else knew.

“Of course I knew, who the hell do you think told him?” Essie snapped before turning to glare at Tony, “Though, I was under the impression that we were going to wait and let you have a childhood before possibly getting you killed.  Apparently that doesn’t matter anymore.”

“I’m trying to keep you from tearing the Avengers apart!” Tony cried out, desperately, “You’re gonna hand Barnes over, you’re gonna come with us-“

_“We found the Quinjet, it’s in terminal five,”_ Sam announced over coms.

“Finally.”

“Wha-“

Tony didn’t get a chance to finish asking what Essie meant.

The thick smoke from her smoke bomb was already filling the air.


	22. Paralyzed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The past can paralyze you if you let it, and even if you don't.

# Chapter Twenty-two

### Paralyzed

 

As if her week couldn’t get worse, now she was running from a fight.  Essie hated leaving the others behind, they all did, but they didn’t have a choice.  It didn’t help matters when Black Widow cut them off.

“You here to stop us?  Or to help?” Essie asked the Widow, specifically.  There was always a spot on the team for Nat.

“I’m gonna’ regret this.”

“I remember telling you you’d regret it when I recruited you,” Essie pointed out as she took a few steps backwards, “And when I hired you.”

“I should have listened,” Nat admitted, putting her fist up and aiming one of the tasers strapped to her wrist.  At the last second she changed her aim and hit the Black Panther, attempting to sneak up on them.  Essie spun on her heel and, with a flick of her wrist, punched the Panther with an extra shockwave.

“New gloves?” Natasha asked casually as Essie jogged up to join them.

“Yeah, reinforced on the knuckles, better grip for the usual skulking around, and my favorite part, electrified punches,” Essie grinned like a child with a new toy, “Figured they’d come in handy sometime soon.  I can get you a pair after we get back from saving the world.”

“I’m counting on that, consider it payback for covering for you here,” Natasha accepted the offer, stepping aside to let the agent and the super soldiers make their way to the Quinjet.  As Steve started up the Quinjet he kept shooting glances at Essie, and Bucky’s disconcerted expression didn’t help.  She waited until they were at least half an hour away from the fight and safe from being tracked.

“What?” Essie snapped.

“You were _literally_ just fighting each other and then you turned around and acted like nothing ever happened,” Bucky pointed out.

“To be fair, when Nat and I met we were trying to kill each other, and after 70 years of the two of us trying to kill each other we were going to _fondue_ ,” Essie pointed out, deciding to take a stab at Steve while she was at it.  Steve noticed, even though he was piloting the Quinjet.

"Yeah, then the world’s biggest punk got in the way,” Bucky agreed, shooting an accusatory look at Steve.  Just because _Steve_ didn’t know what he was missing, when it came to women specifically, didn’t mean _Bucky_ didn’t know.  Bucky knew damn well what he was missing and the fact that he was interrupted during his first shot with his soul mate as well as his first shot at sex in 70 years didn’t help things.

"Please stop,” Steve begged.

“The Star Spangled Man with a plan has turned into the Star Spangled cock-block in tights,” Essie replied, continuing the conversation with Bucky as if Steve wasn’t even there.  Bucky snickered a little too much at the nickname.  Revenge was coming, Steve just _knew_ it.

“I’m never living that down, am I?” Steve remained hopeful.

“Oh, you will.  After I ruin your chances with the blonde agent you were making out with earlier.”

Steve groaned.

Bucky would do it too.

 

It stood to reason the levity they felt at their escape wouldn’t last long.  It was forced, after all, as they tried to push back the thought of abandoning the rest of their team.  As they tried to forget everything that would happen as a result.  As they tried to forget what they had already done, what they had already said.

Reports were flooding in.  War Machine severely injured.  Falcon unconscious and in custody.  Hawkeye in custody.  Scarlet Witch locked in a containment cell, strapped in a strait jacket, and sedated.  Ant Man in custody.  Spiderman injured.  Black Widow under suspicion, reported to Secretary Ross and soon to run.  Black Panther angry and irrational.  Vision functioning but unresponsive.  Iron Man in a rage.

It was a mess.

A mess that Agent Esmeralda Faria could have prevented if she had done her job right, if she had pulled her head out of her ass and started running her own network of spies when she should have.  Instead, because she acted like an insolent child, it was all falling apart.  Essie silently hung up after her last call, pocketed her phone, and made her way back to her seat in the front of the Quinjet.

“What happened to your friends?” Bucky asked, quietly, with his own heavy heart.

“There’s nothing we can do about it now,” she answered, looking up and out the windows of the Quinjet, “Right now we focus on making their sacrifice worth something.”

“I don’t know if I’m worth all this…”

“What you did all those years…it wasn’t you.  You didn’t have a choice,” Steve attempted to console his friend.

“I know…but I did it.”

 

Oh god, oh god they were right all along.  Barnes hadn’t bombed the UN.

The pieces all fell into place in Tony’s mind when F.R.I.D.A.Y. notified him of the priority update from Berlin police.  The doctor that was _supposed_ to have interrogated Bucky had been dead _hours_ before Barnes even reached Berlin.  To top it off there was a wig and facial prosthetics that would make a man look enough like Barnes to make it appear as he was the one caught on security feed, when in reality it was the leader of a Sokovian covert kill squad.

They were right, Barnes wasn’t behind any of it and worst of all…

Worst of all Tony knew that they were right all along and he had already struck a war with the one constant adult that supported him throughout his childhood. 

He knew, he had known the second she told him and maybe even before, that what he was doing wouldn’t lead to anything good.  Perhaps that was why her accusations on the tarmac triggered a sense of guilt and desperation instead of anger and loathing.  All he could do was hope she’d do the same thing she always did when he screwed up like this.

Forgive him, help him clean it up, and try to keep him from doing it again.

Here’s to hoping _somebody_ would tell him where they went.


	23. Bad Blood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They finally found him, Zemo, the man behind everything, and yet he wasn't working for the reasons they thought. So, what did he really want?

# Chapter Twenty-three

### Bad Blood

 

As they stood at the off-ramp of the Quinjet, waiting for it to lower itself, Steve became nostalgic.

“Remember when we had to ride back from Rockaway Beach in that freezer truck?” Steve asked, looking at Bucky, who smiled a little.

“Wasn’t that the time you used our train money to buy hot dogs?” Bucky replied with a smile of his own, teasingly laying the blame on Steve.

“You blew three bucks trying to win that stuffed bear for a red-head,” Steve countered, bringing a small chuckled to Bucky.

“What was her name again?”

“Hold on, you blew three bucks on a girl and you don’t know her name?” Essie cut in.  Sure, three bucks meant nothing now but back in the 30’s people could survive on $45 and that was still more than the average factory worker was paid.  What you could buy for a buck in the 30’s would be worth about 13 bucks now.  Three bucks wasted on a girl whose name you didn’t remember was a _lot_ of money.

"That’s the part you’re going to focus on?” Bucky _had_ to ask as the guys watched Essie step off of the Quinjet.

“Yeah, oh,” Essie answered as she turned around to further tease the man, “And before you forget my name is _Esmeralda_ but everybody calls me _Essie_.”

“You’re paying for that,” Bucky retorted, confidently, as he and Steve followed.  Steve just hid his smirk and raised his cowl.  Poor Buck didn’t know who he was getting into a ‘smartass contest’ with.  Good thing he went for the difficult girls; it wasn’t long until Essie went nuclear.

“See, normally I’d be afraid but you’d have to actually remember me to get revenge so I’m not all that worried.”

_Boom._

“Told you, good luck with her.”

“Shut up.”

 

They were being cautious, sneaking through the Hydra base hidden away in Siberia, Bucky took the lead with his rifle raised, Essie was close behind with a jack-knife in hand, and Steve held up the tail end with his shield raised.  They heard someone pulling open the doors to the elevator behind them and they spun on their heels, taking positions.  Steve in the front, his shield raised and prepared to block any attacks, Essie flipped her knife and prepared to throw it while her other hand was poised over her smaller knives, and Bucky held his rifle up prepared to shoot.

Then they saw Tony.

“I assume you couldn’t just wait at home for me to give you the ‘I told you so’ speech,” Essie greeted as she stood up and flipped her knife.  She had more trust in Tony than Steve was comfortable with at the moment, certainly more than _Bucky_ was comfortable with.

“Yeah, well, you know how much I _love_ that speech,” Tony replied, “Been hearing it my whole life, why stop now?”

“Because, and I can’t believe I’m saying this, I’m getting sick and tired of giving it,” Essie replied, “Seriously, between you and Fury, your dad, and don’t get me started on _these_ stooges.  It's stressful being right all the time.”

“Noted.  Ross doesn’t know I’m here, I’d like to keep it that way, otherwise I’d have to arrest myself.”

“Well, that sounds like a lot of paperwork,” Steve replied, his guard wasn’t completely lowered and Bucky’s sure as hell wasn’t, something Tony noticed.

“Manchurian Candidate, you’re killing me.  There’s a truce here, you can drop…” Tony wasn’t quite sure where he was going to go with that.  He had to admit, to Bucky’s defense, Tony and his team had been gunning for Bucky nearly non-stop for the past few days.  Perhaps some paranoia and distrust was to be granted at the moment.

 

This wasn’t right.  There was only one heat signature?  By all accounts there should be…five…

“He killed them, all of them,” Essie observed as she looked at Hydra’s unstable super soldiers, more specifically their frozen corpses still trapped in their cryogenic chambers.  What in the actual hell was this man, Zemo according to what Tony had told them, actually after?

 _"If it’s any comfort, they died in their sleep,”_ Zemo announced as the four observed the dead, “ _Did you really think I wanted more of you?”_

“What the hell?” Bucky asked aloud as they looked around.

_"I am grateful to them, though.  They brought you here.”_

Steve found the window Zemo was watching them through, throwing his shield at the wall of the room in an attempt to knock it down.

_"Please, Captain.  The Soviets built this chamber to withstand the launch blast of UR-100 rockets.”_

“I’m bettin’ I could beat that,” Tony wagered.

_"I’m sure you could, Mr. Stark.  But then you’d never know why you came.”_

“You killed innocent people in Vienna just to bring us here?” Steve questioned.  What was this guy’s end game?  What was he up to?

None of them knew the Black Panther was skulking around, none of them knew that he was there to hear the truth of the attack in Vienna.

“I thought of nothing else for over a year.  I studied you.  I followed you.  But now that you’re standing here I just realized…there’s a big of green in the blue of your eyes,” Zemo observed with a small chuckle, “How nice to find a flaw.”

"Is it just me or do these guys just get creepier and creepier?" Essie muttered to Tony.

"Not just you," Tony muttered back.

Essie was afraid of that.

“You’re Sokovian, is that what this is about?” Steve questioned, trying to get some answers.

“Sokovia was a failed state long before you blew it to hell.  No, I’m here because I made a promise.”

“You lost someone,” Steve concluded, figuring out what it was all about.

“I lost _everyone_.  And so will you.”

He started the video, December 16th, 1991.  Hydra’s assassination of Howard and Mary Stark.  Their chosen assassin?

_The Winter Soldier._


	24. Unconditional

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's all over. The Avengers as the world knew them are destroyed, utterly beyond repair, and the family Essie had build for herself over the years was gone and soon to be replaced by a new one.
> 
> Still, she had a few words for the man that, to her, would always be the excitable little boy that would spend hours showing her his latest creation with a wide grin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not sure how I feel about this chapter. Like at all. I mean, this is a conversation that I want Essie and Tony to have and Essie's certainly not the type to have this kind of conversation over the phone or through a letter. Especially considering the history and relationship between her and Tony I don't think she'd want to leave it hanging with a letter.
> 
> Seriously, let me know what you think because I'm considering completely revamping this chapter into something else.

# Chapter Twenty-four

### Unconditional

 

Tony looked Essie in the eyes, his jaw quivering and tears shining in his eyes.  The second the video ended Essie stepped between the assassin and the genius, hoping to prevent a fight.

“Did you know?” he asked, quietly.

“Tony, I-“

_"Did you know?!”_ he screamed.  Essie knew everything, but Tony was praying to every god he didn’t believe in that this fact had slipped through the cracks of her grasp.  Essie was the only constant form of family Tony had, even when they hadn’t talked for years because work got in the way he still knew he could call her up and ask for help.  If she lied to him…

“I learned Hydra was behind it not long before we took down S.H.I.E.L.D., I only figured out it was Bucky a few days ago,” Essie answered before admitting, “I guess part of me always knew after finding out about Hydra and…I was just hoping it wasn’t true…”

Tony was silent, unmoving, and then…

Things went to the deepest level of Hell almost immediately.  Tony snapped, hitting Essie and throwing her to the side, crossing a line for both Bucky and Steve.  He trying to kill Bucky and if his own death hadn’t spelled Essie’s death as well the assassin might have let him if he hadn’t attacked the woman.  Steve and Essie were trying desperately to stop Tony before splitting up, Steve holding off Tony as Essie tried to get Bucky out.  That hadn’t worked either.  No _good_ solution was working, all that was left was an all-out brawl.

That hadn’t ended well either.

Perhaps it was contagious, T’Challa’s revelation after speaking with Zemo, discovering that Zemo had acted out of vengeance for his family as he got the Avengers to rip themselves apart.  Perhaps it was nostalgia, or a sense of duty after spending so long taking care of Tony.  Perhaps it didn’t matter what it was.  Whatever it was, Essie couldn’t bring herself to leave Tony, not quite yet.

“I’ll catch up,” she said, limping her way from the wall she was sitting against as she held her side, no doubt a few cracked ribs if not _broken_.  To be frank, as skilled as Essie was, she was surprised she was still conscious at all.  Between all four of them, assuming Tony had his suit on at the time, Essie was the weakest in an upfront fight and she knew that.  She didn't have any superhuman strength, speed, or powers of any kind.  All she had was training, a remarkable amount of experience, and a gift for improvising.  Hell, most of what she did during Manhattan and Sokovia was running around laying traps and helping civilians escape.  She was still impressive, still a great addition to the Avengers, but in her own way just like everyone else on the team.  

“Essie-“ Bucky began, leaning on Steve for support.  He didn’t like leaving her behind, and Steve didn’t like it either.

“Go,” Essie cut him off, gently putting her hand on his cheek and kissing him, “I’ll be fine, his suit is practically useless anyway.  I just...I want to talk.”

Steve nodded, he still didn’t like it but he understood as he took Bucky out of the bunker.  Essie turned her attention to Tony as she took off her black mask and limped over to him, holding a hand to help him up.

“I can’t guarantee I’ll be able to help but I’ll try.”

“I don’t _want_ your help and I don’t want to talk,” Tony spat back, getting up on his own no matter how he had to struggle.        

“Okay.  Did you see that chair in the middle of the main chamber?  The nasty looking one with the reinforced restraints the Hulk couldn’t break out of and the bran zapping device hooked up to it?” Essie asked as she stepped away and began limping her way out.  She was using that soft tone again, the tone she used when Tony got in trouble as a kid.  Decades later, Tony looked older than she did for crying out loud, and she was still treating him like a little kid.  Tony didn’t want to talk and the tone she was using only pissed him off more, but maybe it was out of habit that he followed Essie.  Perhaps...perhaps as angry as he was with her, he wasn't quite ready to say goodbye just yet.  Essie didn't seem to be either.

“Yeah, what about it?” Tony snapped again, he wanted Essie to get to the point as soon as possible just so she would get out of his sight.

“All reports say that they’d take Bucky out of cryo, stick him in that chair, zap him until there was literally nothing left, then they’d recite a few words that would turn on the programming they shoved into his head.  Programming that turned him into such an emotionless killer willing to do their bidding, he had no problems trying to kill me and Steve as I pulled the world’s largest Bomb Pop out of the Arctic and back to the US,” Essie explained, “And trust me he was trying.  Killed off an entire S.H.I.E.L.D. S.T.R.I.K.E. team trying to get to us, shot me twice, shot Steve once even though he was an unconscious icicle at the time, even shot at our getaway vehicle with an RPG."

“ _He killed my mom_ ,” Tony seethed.

“I know, and that’s not going to get better any time soon.  But I think there’s a few things you should know, besides the fact that Bucky was nothing but a mindless weapon Hydra used.  Wanda forgave you, after everything, after a Stark Industries missile killed her parents and Ultron killed Pietro, she forgave you,” Essie pointed out, softly and simply.

“This is different,” Tony argued.

“You're right.  Ultron and that missile never have to live with the nightmares of what they did.  Bucky does, and I can’t even imagine…the assassinations, the things I did for the SSR, for S.H.I.E.L.D., they haunt me.  I know it was the right thing.  I know it was them or hundreds, thousands, maybe even millions of people, and I don’t regret killing a few to save all of those innocent lives, but I still live with blood on my hands and a guilt that’s never going to go away.  Just like him, I remember every single one and they’re going to haunt me until the day I die,” Essie finished, turning to limp her way out of the bunker.

“You _lied_ to me!”

“Yeah, I did,” Essie admitted, turning around, “And maybe if I hadn’t, if I had told you the truth, all of it, we all would have been prepared.  I regret that decision, but I saw what losing your mom did to you and I couldn't bear to put you through that again.  I’m the one that made that call, and I’m the one that’ll have to live with it until the day I die, but don’t take it out on anyone else.”

Tony was seething now, “ _g_ _et out of my sight.”_

Essie nodded, turning around and leaving as she said, “We’re always here if you need us, even if you hate us.”

She knew it wasn’t going to end with a hug and forgiveness.  In fact, it had ended better than she thought it would.  She fully expected Tony to punch her with a metal-clad fist and arrest her.  Perhaps she had hoped he would, give him someone to place all the blame on while the others went free, give her a chance to feel like she was atoning for the things that had led to the guilt weighing on her shoulders.

It seemed like the world wasn’t ready to confine her just yet.


	25. Clarity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They were safe in Wakanda, Essie had called in some people to patch up Bucky's arm and give him a new one, King T'Challa was even extending the protection of Wakanda to them. That just left one problem...
> 
> Bucky wanting to go back into cryo, and his failure to tell Essie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, not going to lie, I'm way behind on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. but everything from last chapter on forward is AU-Canon Divergence so consider yourself warned for that.

# Chapter Twenty-five

### Clarity

 

They had lucked out, really lucked out, when T’Challa gave them a refuge in Wakanda.  They lived in his family home, it wasn’t exactly a castle but it was as big as one.  The king offered Essie a separate office where she could manage her network, as long as she was willing to use her network in the assistance of protecting Wakanda.

That was literally the _least_ T’Challa could request as far as Essie’s opinion was concerned.

One of the first things Essie did was make a call to some of her people, see who was willing to design and build a new arm for Bucky.  Of all the people that were most excited about the idea, Fitz and Simmons were the last ones Essie thought would be so excited.  Essie didn’t argue, though she did end up in a war with the new S.H.I.E.L.D as a result.

Not really a war, just mostly on their bad side.  Not a huge loss considering Coulson wasn’t in charge anymore.  It wasn’t really S.H.I.E.L.D. anymore, not to her, and it never would be again.  They were just another government organization gunning for her and the ‘Immortal Network.’  She didn’t name it; some asshole that thought he was clever named it after finding out the ‘Immortal Agent’ was in charge.  Again, she didn’t name herself.  Another asshole that thought he was clever named her that after finding out she was born in the early 19th Century.  That asshole was Clint, for those who are curious.

They sat in one of the rooms in the medical wing as Fitz and Simmons talked over each other, somehow holding an entire conversation as they talked at the same time.  Essie kind of felt bad, Bucky and Steve were nowhere near prepared for Fitz and Simmons while the scientist and rocket scientist were entirely prepared for them.  Then again, that could be because they spent so much time with and talking to Essie.  T’Challa was simply there to observe, curious to see these scientists that Essie claimed were better than his own and worth ordering a brand of British beer for, and he had to admit he was impressed.  Unlike most child geniuses, they didn’t have undue pride _or_ shyness from youth to block them from their genius.  Best of all, they worked together better than clockwork.

“You have an eye for talent,” T’Challa commended to the agent sitting next to her soulmate at the edge of a medical examination table, “I see why you refused my team for the two of them.  You may have access to our resources.”

“Appreciate that.  To be fair, I was in charge of recruitment when S.H.I.E.L.D. started, and I did ask your father to join,” Essie replied, agreeing with T’Challa.

“He said the only S.H.I.E.L.D. agent that came to Wakanda came here to train.”

“Officially I came down to ask if he would join S.H.I.E.L.D. since your grandfather was still ruling at the time, but he explained that the Black Panther existed solely to protect Wakanda and its people and I accepted that answer.  But I was old enough to know I didn’t know everything and asked if I could stick around to train, learn the language, learn the culture, and your father hosted me as his guest,” Essie explained, “He was a good man, a very wise man even when he was young.  Wish I was half that wise when I was in my 70’s.”

“Hey, you caught up,” Bucky offered, leaning over to kiss Essie on her head.

“Well, yeah, compared to _you_ I’m _Yoda_.”

“Who?” Bucky asked, looking to

“You’re _killing_ me,” Essie groaned, leaning her head against Bucky’s firm shoulder.  For all but the first Star Wars movie, _Episode IV: A New Hope,_ Essie had dressed up as Lea or Amidala and waited in a line for _hours_ to see the premier.

Bucky smiled and leaned over to press a kiss to the top of Essie’s head.  He looked up and caught Steve watching carefully.  The punk wasn’t about to let it go.

_"I gotta go back on ice,” Bucky said as he sat on the bench in the Quinjet, hunched over with his arm leaning on his leg as he ignored the ache where his metal arm and flesh met.  A side effect of getting his arm blown off, literally._

_Steve froze and let it process before replying, “Essie will be back in a few minutes, you can talk-“_

_"No, Steve, she can’t know.”_

_"She can’t…you’ve lost your mind.  Just give it time-“_

_"Promise me you won’t tell her.”_

_“Oh, no, I’m not telling her.  You’re telling her, and you’re not going through with this crazy plan until you do.”_

It had already been two days and Bucky hadn’t been able to bring himself to tell her.  How was he supposed to tell her?  Especially after she had pulled two of her agents out of S.H.I.E.L.D. and lied to their boss, a man Essie had recruited into S.H.I.E.L.D. and trained, so they could come all the way to Wakanda.  That was between everything else she did too.  Bucky had seen her working, actually working, once and it was a mess.  He had no idea how she kept three running operations straight plus her assistant coming in with paperwork and updates about the reactions to the Civil War between the Avengers and the effects they were having on the Accords.

Now he knew why everyone was so frightened by her.  It had nothing to do with her combat and everything to do with… _this_.

Hell, _he_ was intimidated.

“We have an arm for you to use in the interim but it’s not nearly as good as the permanent fix,” Fitz said as he gestured to the arm sitting on the lab table, “It’s not as strong as the other one so don’t go punching tanks with it.”

“We’ve got plenty to work with and we’ll have your new and updated arm by the end of the week,” Simmons announced.

“At the latest, that’s how long it would take if we had to build the port too-“

“But I have to connect his nerve endings and make sure his brain is registering feeling in his arm and we have to develop artificial nerves,” Simmons pointed out, “I can’t do that overnight.”

“Alright, alright, you two get to work and give me the deadline by the end of the day, let me know if you need anything,” Essie suggested, sliding off of the examination table.

“Yeah, I’d kind of like to have two arms again.  I had some plans and they require two hands,” Bucky added lightheartedly, though he wasn’t joking about having plans.

“It doesn’t _require_ two hands-“

“Yeah but every position that involves me picking you up with one arm isn’t nearly as fun as it sounds,” Bucky interrupted.

“You’ve thought a lot about this,” Essie commented, ignoring the fact that being picked up with one arm didn't sound fun in the first place, “In very great detail."

“Why do I feel like I’m about to be blamed for that?” Steve cut in as he pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Because it’s your fault-“

“You were in a public place!” Steve argued.

“Right, because that was clearly going to stop us,” Bucky snorted in response.

“Okay!  Let’s get that arm put in place!” Essie clapped and slid off of the table she was sitting on with Bucky.

“R-right,” Fitz shook out of the stupor he and Simmons were in as they watched the spectacle.  Bucky winced as the engineer picked at the tattered remains of his last metal arm, pulling out the parts that would only get away, before letting out a languished groan after the temporary one was put into place.  It hurt every damn time.

After checking to make sure he was okay, Essie left Bucky with a kiss before she and the king returned to work.  Bucky slid off the examination table and walked over to the geniuses, interrupting them.

“Hey, can you do me a favor?”

“Aren’t we already?” Fitz questioned.

“This is a favor Essie can’t know about, yet,” Bucky clarified.

“Alright, oh are you planning on a proposal because just to warn you Essie doesn’t think much of marriage except as a more convenient way to file taxes when you’re living with someone for the rest of your life.  Normally it would seem too soon but with your unique soul marks it doesn’t really matter much.”

“Yeah, if one of us dies the other dies,” Bucky briefly explained is understanding on the subject.

“It’s more than that,” Simmons explained, “Every time you were put into cryogenic stasis Essie’s body was put in a type of stasis.  She was conscious and in control of her actions, she clearly lived her life, but she stopped aging, even her cycle stopped…”

Simmons continued until Fitz interjected, telling her that she needed to help him with the artificial nerve endings in the upgraded arm and Simmons excused herself with a smile and returned to work.  It didn’t stop Bucky from standing there, dumbfounded.  He had been curious how Essie was alive, well, and looking no older than him, but he figured it was a story similar to his or Steve’s.  He didn’t know that…

_Fuck._

“Buck?” Steve brought his childhood friend out of his thoughts, after following the former assassin out of the lab and into the common area and leaning forward against the back of the couch.

“How many friends did she watch grow old and die because I was frozen?”  He was quiet, steady, and Steve knew exactly what he was thinking.

“Buck it’s not your-“

“How many, Steve?”

“Her brother, a few nieces and a nephew she cut contact with after they were threatened, Peggy and her husband, Colonel Philips and his family, a few more friends from work, Howard and Mary, she spent a lot of time taking care of Tony…” Steve hung his head as he answered, his hands in his pockets.  He didn’t know all of them, he’d admit that, but he knew about enough of them.

Bucky let out a sardonic scoff, “If we had just waited like the scouting team told us to I never would have fallen off of that train.”

“Yeah, I looked into that…Essie was the one that filed that report.  Apparently they were going to follow Zola back to the Red Skull and leave a trail for us…”

“Of-fucking-course it was Essie, she was too good at her job before she had over half a century of experience thrown at her,” Bucky muttered angrily.  He wasn’t angry at Essie.  He was just… _angry_.  Not even a loud, violent angry that could be controlled and vented.  It was a burning ember buried deep and he couldn't put it out no matter what he did.  There seemed to be a lot of that anger inside him.

Still, Steve had to know.

“What are you gonna’ do?”


	26. Arms

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After finding out Essie had lived such a long live because of what happened to him, his decision became so much more complicated.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't own 'Arms' by Christina Perri, but it's a fantastic song that you really should check out.

# Chapter Twenty-six

### Arms

 

_What was he going to do?_

Bucky pushed himself up from leaning against the back of the couch and took his first few steps back to the living quarters.

"Buck, what are you-“

“I don’t know, alright?” Bucky snapped as he turned around, “I don’t know because one could end with me _hurting_ her, or _worse_ , but the other leaves her alone for years, maybe even decades, _again_!”

Steve couldn’t even imagine what he would do in Bucky’s place.  All Steve could do was offer what support he had.

“As long as I’m here, she won’t be alone,” Steve swore, but he was clear to add something else, “But I’m not gonna’ be around forever.”

"I know…I know…don’t-”

“I won’t tell her.  I might punch you if you hurt her, but I won’t tell her,” Steve promised.  Essie had become one of Steve’s closest friends and, just like when it came to Bucky, Steve would start a fight in her defense.

Bucky nodded once as his brow furrowed, heavily in thought as he turned and made his way to Essie’s room.  He was hoping to find her there, instead he found the belongings she hadn’t packed yet.

Pictures made up the majority of them, pictures in many forms.  Photo albums, framed pictures, even caricatures from amusement parks and pictures that kids had drawn for her over the years, there was even one from Tony in the pile.  The cutest one had to be one from what looked like Essie’s birthday, one of many.  She was sitting at a table with a three-year-old Tony on her lap and a girl that looked to be about five, who must have been one of Peggy’s kids.  She must have pulled them in to help her blow out the candles on her birthday cake because the picture was taken just as they were blowing out the candles.

As he looked through the pictures, Essie’s wide smile in each one drew his attention, along with the fact that there were a _lot_ of pictures with Essie holding a child whose parents were _also_ in the picture.  She wanted a family of her own and life fucked her on that in so many ways, and these pictures were the patch for that particular craving.  What’s worse was these pictures were a way of clinging to a time when she wasn’t so…

_Alone._

Bucky turned when he heard the door opening and he saw Essie on the phone as she returned to her bedroom.

“I told you what to do about it, now do it,” Essie snapped before hanging up and tucking her phone in the back-pocket of her denim shorts, “Hey, didn’t expect to find you he-“

Essie was cut off when Bucky crossed the bedroom in a few long strides and pulled the woman into a heated kiss with both hands on either side of her cheeks.  Essie had to admit she was a little concerned at the sudden show of affection, but she returned it all the same.  Her hands started at the waist of Bucky’s jeans and slowly moved upwards, over his black shirt and up to rest at his firm shoulders seconds before Bucky pulled back.

“You’re never going to be alone again, doll,” Bucky promised as he rested his forehead against hers, “Not while I’m around, and I ain’t goin’ anywhere.”

Essie looked up at him, both surprised and touched, as she said, “You know, I don’t have to go back to work until, like, eight tomorrow morning.”

Bucky smirked as he reached around Essie to push the door shut before picking her up and tossing her back onto the bed.  After a surprised yelp, Essie laughed after she landed and smiled up at the man kneeling over her before he descended down upon her for another lovingly passionate kiss.  She had literally never been kissed like this.  If the kiss wasn’t work-related it was just sex, but this was different.  As she combed her hands through Bucky’s soft, dark hair Essie knew she couldn’t get enough.

Bucky pulled back to tug his shirt off in a flash, almost literally.  Essie barely had enough to get one arm out of the sleeves of her white Alice Cooper T-shirt by the time Bucky was back on her.  She tried to pull away just long enough to duck her head through the neck-hole of her T-shirt but Bucky wouldn’t let her, which brought her into giggles.

“My shirt’s not off yet,” Essie tried to coax Bucky into letting her back away for the second it would take to take off her shirt.

“Just roll it up or something, it’ll be fine,” Bucky replied, confidently, before attempting to close in for another kiss, but Essie stopped him by placing her hand over his mouth.  He groaned and sat back on his heels.

“Fine, I’ll let you strip for me.”

“Oh this ain’t a strip show, you gotta work for that,” Essie countered quickly as she pulled her t-shirt off.

“So what’s in it for me?”

“I do this,” Essie replied as she unclasped her bra and tossed it somewhere, "And you don't spend the next fifteen minutes struggling with my bra and turning me off."

“Worth it,” Bucky admitted before quickly returning to his previous position hovering over Essie with his hands holding hers by her head.  Essie felt the chill of his metal hand sliding down her arm, tracing lightly over her shoulder and collar bone to rest on her breast, placing a practiced squeeze that drew a groan from Essie.  Bucky smirked before trailing his mouth down to Essie’s unattended breast to pull another moan as he nipped, sucked, and kissed.

Essie reached down to tug at the waist of Bucky’s jeans insistently and Bucky got the memo.  He let Essie’s hand go to let her un-button and un-zip his jeans as he busied himself with Essie’s shorts and… _thong_.  Essie’s hands were faster and much defter than Bucky’s, so when she slipped her hand under her jeans and boxers to grasp his already hot and hard member, a very impressive member at that.  She pushed Bucky’s jeans and boxers over his hips and as far as she could so Bucky could kick them off.  Essie took the moment to swing her leg around Bucky’s hip and flip the two of them over so she was sitting on top.

It didn’t last long, Bucky easily flipped the two of them over when Essie leaned over to kiss him, tugging off her shorts and thong while he was at it.  He trailed his mouth down, placing kisses down Essie’s body until he reached her core, taking one of Essie’s long legs and laying it over his shoulder.  He looked up at her with one last devious grin before leaning forward and placing a hot open-mouthed kiss against her clit before nipping and suckling at it as he lightly, teasingly, pushed in one finger, then two.

“Bucky,” Essie moaned, throwing her head back and letting out another whine, “ _James.”_

Hearing her moan and whine for him, struck Bucky to his core and he pulled away and shot forward to attach his mouth to the crook of Essie’s neck.  He placed both hands firmly on Essie’s hips to position himself before slowly pushing inside.  Essie groaned and clutched at Bucky’s shoulders and bit her bottom lip, Bucky groaning into Essie’s neck as he pushed forward.

The pace was steady, but Bucky wasn’t able to keep the pace slow.  Right then, right there, he just needed her and she needed him.  Essie met Bucky’s thrusts and scratched at his shoulders and back as she felt her orgasm reaching closer and closer.  Just the sight of her reaching her orgasm was enough, but the way she cried out and clenched down around him was too much, too perfect for him not to follow her to cloud nine.

Bucky had enough sense to pull the covers of the bed off enough to cover the two of them as he resituated them.  Essie curled up against his side, her head laying on Bucky’s chest and their legs tangled together, as Bucky held her close and placed one last kiss on the top of her head.  They weren’t done for the day, or even the night, but Essie was going to need a short nap and Bucky…

It was probably the first time in his life he ever just wanted to lay there and hold a girl, _his_ girl.  As he watched her doze off into sleep, wrapped in his arms, one of her hands placed over his heart as the other held the hand he had lying on her side with his arm around her waist.  He felt like an absolute idiot.

_He could never leave her._


	27. Distance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Essie should have known her happily ever after wouldn't last long, not when someone was systematically hunting down her agents to get to her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I live!
> 
> I'm so sorry for the extended wait, I had finals and final projects to focus on and after them I just had to hibernate for a bit. That doesn't mean I didn't do some story planning or mental writing, I swear.
> 
> As for the title, it's a song by the fantastically talented Christina Perri and it's a beautiful song that really helped me capture the place where Bucky and Essie's relationship is at.

# Chapter Twenty-seven

### Distance

 

It was a good morning, a great morning, as the two soulmates left Essie’s bedroom to join the others for breakfast.  Essie left for the kitchen to get two cups of coffee, and that was when Sam opened his mouth.

“You didn’t-“

“No more than five times,” Bucky smirked in response.  Clint almost choked on his orange juice as he laughed and Wanda ended up hitting him on the back to keep him from dying.  Steve sighed heavily and pinched the bridge of his nose.  He should have known this would happen, he should have known that Bucky and Essie would-

Steve’s thoughts hit a screeching halt when a single thought crossed his mind.

“Does she know you’re going back into cryo?” Steve asked, practically interrogating Bucky.

“No, I-“ Bucky didn’t have a chance to finish explaining, keeping his voice down in an attempt to keep Essie from hearing them, but stopped when Steve looked up and behind Bucky with wide eyes.  Bucky turned around and saw Essie just standing there, holding two hot cups of coffee.  They all watched as she came out of her stupor and made her way to the table, calmly putting Bucky’s coffee in front of him before grabbing a bagel from the basket on the table.  Wanda grabbed her own bagel before bolting after Essie.

“I have work to do and I’m already running late,” Essie said simply, giving Bucky a kiss on the cheek before leaving the rest of them stunned in silence.

“Well…this is bad…” Scott spoke up.

“It’s alright, Tiny, he’s just got the head of one of the best private spy networks mad at him.  It’s not like she has roughly 80 years of experience as a spy and assassin,” Clint replied, his tone dripping with sarcasm, as he reached across the table to pour himself a glass of orange juice.

“I’m dead…”

“No,” Sam corrected, “But you’re gonna’ wish you were.”

"Essie doesn't get mad like that.  She just shuts down and starts calculating things until she reaches the logical solution," Steve countered, trying to help until he realized the weight of what he really meant.  Once she made the logical calculations, Essie would agree that it was best for Bucky to go into cryo.  He looked to Bucky, who had put the pieces together himself and Steve recognized the dazed look that had overcome his best friend.

Bucky was tearing himself apart.

 

Wanda had followed Essie all the way to her office, a simple office lined in chalkboard stands that could be wheeled around the room as necessary.  It was a little comforting to Wanda, despite the fact that Essie had access to the most advanced technology in the world she still preferred to do things the old fashioned way.  Though, right now that wasn’t what the concern was.

“Essie, are you alright?” Wanda asked as Essie flipped through files of new intelligence to work on the cases she had drawn up on her chalk boards.

“I’m fine,” Essie replied simply, “I understand why Bucky would want to go back into Cryo and I respect his decision.”

“You’re not fine,” Wanda countered before adding, “Clint says it’s best to talk about these things.”

“Clint hasn’t had 90 years to perfect the art of bottling down his emotions.  I have.”

“90 years you only lived because of your soul bond with Bucky.  If he goes back into cryo it could be another 90 years.”

“That’ll give me time to figure out who to pass my network to,” Essie replied simply, “We met _once_ before we spent the better part of 80 years trying to _kill_ each other.  Soulmates or not we’ve barely begun to get to know each other, he owes nothing to me and I owe nothing to him.”

“Essie!” Wanda couldn't believe what Essie was saying, not after the dream that Wanda had cast over Essie as the Avengers were trying to stop Ultron.  Not when Wanda knew Essie blamed herself for so many things that were well out of her power to stop.

Essie turned around to look at the young woman, “I would love for Bucky to stay out of cryo but it _is_ the smart decision and no matter how much I want to scream and cry I _can’t_.  Someone is hunting my informants trying to get to me and I need to find him and kill him myself before he kills anyone else _because of me._ ”

“You have us to help-“

“I can’t until I know who it is, but I’ll remember your offer,” Essie smiled kindly, “And if I ever need to talk you’ll be the first person I talk to, I promise.”

Wanda nodded before hugging the older woman, lingering for a moment as she enjoyed the motherly touch of Essie’s hug before letting the older woman get back to work.  Unbeknownst to Wanda, Essie let out a breath she had been holding and dropped her file back onto her desk.  She already knew exactly who was hunting down her people and she knew why, she just had to find him and kill him herself.

“Austria.  He gets his hands on every agent Hydra abandoned when it fell and he doesn’t even bother to move them out of Austria,” she muttered to herself as she picked up her phone to order covert transport.


	28. Wine Red

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two months, two months.
> 
> Two months she had been gone and Bucky couldn't take it anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter, I know, but I wanted that suspenseful ending.

# Chapter Twenty-eight

### Wine Red

 

Essie had left for a mission two months ago and still hadn’t returned.  She had made sure to keep in close contact, making contact with someone every other day, but that had stopped two weeks ago.  For the first week they told themselves that Essie was simply deeply undercover, but that became harder after the second week passed.

“We need to find her!” Bucky argued.  He hated this, he felt so fucking _helpless_.  If only Essie hadn’t found out he was considering going back into cryo, maybe she would have told him.  Maybe she would have let him go with her.

Maybe she’d still be safe.

“Look, I don’t like this either but we can’t just go running off because she broke contact for a few weeks,” Clint pointed out, “She went two years under deep cover without reporting to _anyone_.”

“That was when she was working for S.H.I.E.L.D. and that was _normal_ and _safe_.  The whole world is after her now and she took off without telling her own people where she was going,” Bucky argued, “She wouldn’t do that if she was taking off that long, not when she’s the one _running_ the network.”

“He’s got a point, Essie taking off like this was weird, even when we were still Avengers,” Sam agreed, despite how much he wished he didn’t.

“Before she left, she said someone was tracking down her agents and killing them to get to her,” Wanda brought up, “She said she would ask for help when she figured out who it was but…”

“I’m getting the idea she’s the type to say she’ll ask for help when she plans on _never_ asking for help,” Scott spoke up, and knew he was right by the way everyone else just looked at each other with furrowed brows.

“I _told_ you,” Bucky snapped.  He was just a furious with the others as he was himself, and _Essie_.  He would have followed her anywhere, and now his only proof that Essie was still alive was that their damn soul marks hadn’t killed him.

“Yeah, I know, but-“ Steve froze when he heard the flip-phone in his pocket ringing.  There was only one person that would call that number.

_Tony_.

Steve stepped away and answered the phone, “Tony I…I’m glad you called but right now isn’t exactly a good time…”

_"I’m calling about Essie…”_


	29. Hello

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Something was wrong, something was very wrong, and Tony intended to find out what.

# Chapter Twenty-nine

### Hello

 

Every day Tony sat at his desk and looked down at the phone Steve had sent to him with a note, saying he’d always be there.  That blonde bastard really was determined to be perfect, to the point that it pissed Tony off to no end.  It had been a few months and there was still no sign of the missing Avengers, not even Clint Barton who had a wife and kids to return to or Scott Lang who had been recruited onto Steve’s team at the last possible second and had his own daughter to return to.  Tony expected that, Essie was working with them and was likely keeping them all well-hidden, and after decades of experience she’d know exactly what to do.  There was no chance of finding them unless Essie wanted them to be found.

That’s what made the file on his desk all the more frightening.  Not only had agents working for the Avengers found proof that Steve and Essie broke the others out of the Raft, but they tracked Steve and his team to their hiding place in Wakanda.  If they could find that much before Tony ever reached out to them on the one safety line he was allowed…

It could be a trap, something Essie laid out to try to barter for an end to this fight, but that was unlike her.  She was far more confrontational when it came to ending fights, even when Tony’s parents were arguing all the time.  Tony smiled as one particular Christmas crossed his mind…

_Tony sat on the steps of Stark Manor, staring down at his latest invention.  He was only seven but already so smart and still so determined to make his parents proud.  He was young and naïve, and he thought he could stop his parents from fighting if he made something they would both be proud of.  He didn’t know why they were fighting, he tried to ask them but they never answered.  He had seen them though, and it terrified him.  He had never seen his kind and loving mother yell and scream like that, and when his father would normally retort with a clever remark he began yelling and screaming himself.  Just the thought made the young genius sniffle as he looked down on the invention he had given up on._

_"You know, crying isn’t going to finish that project.”_

_Tony looked up and saw his aunt Essie standing there looking cool as ever in her worn jeans, black combat boots, black Led Zeppelin t-shirt, and black leather jacket.  He didn’t say anything, he was too close to sobbing and he was afraid that if he tried to speak it would all come out.  It didn’t matter, his aunt Essie knelt down in front of him and lightly bumped his chin with her knuckle._

_“Pack up your stuff kiddo.  I’ve got Christmas off this year and I’m spending it with my favorite little buddy.”_

_Tony nodded quickly before picking up his latest project and sprinting upstairs to his room to pack.  When he ran back downstairs, his suitcase packed, he found Essie talking to his parents.  He didn’t hear what she was saying but he recognized that tone, she was quiet and stern and angry.  He was too young to think anything about it at the time, he just took Essie’s hand and followed her out to her car and grinned as he answered Essie’s questions about his latest invention._

To this day he still remembered that Christmas as the best Christmas he’d ever had.  Essie’s townhouse was small, she lived alone, and there were very few presents involved but it was still the best.  They made Christmas dinner together and even though Tony had long since figured out Santa wasn’t real, they made cookies from scratch.  Early on Christmas he burst into Essie’s room and started jumping on her bed, and instead of telling him to stop she just caught him and tickled him until he was crying from laughter. 

Years later, after talking about it with his aunt Peggy, he found out that Essie told his parents, flat out, that they were hurting Tony and whether they liked it or not Tony was staying with her until it stopped.  She didn’t care how it stopped, they could make up or split up, but it had to stop for Tony’s sake.

Now she was missing, the same woman that had been there for him when his parents were assassinated.  She was just as hurt and heavy with guilt and grief as he was, for her own reasons, but she supported him all the same.  Now all bets were that she was missing somewhere, dead or worse and he couldn’t do anything unless he picked up that goddamn phone and called that goddamn Ken doll wrapped in a spandex flag.

Tony grabbed the phone and called the programmed number before he could change his mind.

_“Tony I…I’m glad you called but right now isn’t exactly a good time…”_

Steve’s voice was low and cautious, something happened and the pit in Tony’s stomach sunk even lower.

“I’m calling about Essie…”


	30. Sweet Things

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things always just keep getting worse, and with how his life turned out Bucky wasn't even surprised anymore.

# Chapter Thirty

### Sweet Things

 

The way Steve just froze more than concerned Bucky.  He stepped away from the others and silently demanded answers.

“Tony, I know you’re mad at all of us, but you can’t-“

_"I’m calling because she stopped hiding you, and I’m betting she didn’t just forget.”_

“Oh god…it’s worse than we thought…” Steve paled.

“Dammit you little punk, what in the hell is going on?” Bucky snapped.

“I’m putting you on speaker phone,” Steve said before he pulled the phone away from his ear and turned it on speaker, “Essie’s been on a mission for two months but we haven’t heard from her in two weeks.”

_“Son of a bitch,”_ Tony cursed over the line, _“Do you even know where she went?”_

“You know Essie, we didn’t even know she was gone until she called the day after she left,” Clint retorted, “And I’ve already tried asking her people where she went, she didn’t tell any of them.  Something about someone hunting down her people and she was going to stop it then she took off.”

_“Any trail would have been printed out on paper and deleted from the database; she treated all of her biggest secrets like that so I couldn’t get to them.”_

“She would have locked that in her office,” Bucky assumed as they filtered through the halls to Essie’s office.

“We don’t have a key,” Wanda pointed out.

“Don’t need one,” Bucky retorted, grabbing the doorknob with his metal hand and forcing the knob to turn as he roughly shouldered the door open.  The latch and doorknob was irrevocably broken and would need to be completely replaced, but now wasn’t the time to worry about that.

Wanda had been the only one to see inside the office with its sand colored carpet, soft white walls, sandalwood desk and sandy tan furniture.  The room was lined in chalkboard stands that wheeled around and flipped over to reveal another chalk-board.  Each one was covered in a different investigation.  They looked at each one, even flipped the chalkboards over.  They found nothing.

_"There has to be something!”_ Tony snapped.

“Are you sure she wouldn’t have left anything on her computer?” Steve asked again.

_"She didn’t leave anything this big on her database when we were on the same team, you think she’s gonna’ risk me hacking into it now?”_ Tony retorted, _“She left it on paper.”_

Bucky looked at each and every investigation before a picture caught his eye.  It was a Hydra agent, and that was the only picture on that entire chalkboard.  He stepped closer and pulled the picture off the chalkboard.

“This guy,” Bucky showed the picture to the others, “I know him.”

“That’s Grant Ward,” Clint took the picture, “He was Essie’s partner before Fury activated the Avengers Initiative and reassigned her to work with Steve.”

Bucky looked up at Clint, alarmed.

“He’s Hydra, recruited by the only guy crazier than him,” Bucky explained briefly, leaving out a few details, namely the one that involved Pierce waking Bucky up just to beat some sense into Ward.  Garret might have been part of it, could have planned it to beat some sense into the cocky 20-year-old, but Bucky was never privy to those little facts.  Even if he had been, some of his memories were still fuzzy at best.  Still, he remembered enough about Garret and enough about Ward to put some pieces together to get parts of the picture, and none of them were good.

“Shit on a stick.”

Clint always had a way with words.

 

Essie was barely conscious, or maybe she was waking up.  She couldn’t remember clearly, her senses were dulled by the cold room, pain, and blood loss.  Her right eye stung from the blood dripping into it from her forehead and she knew her left ankle was sprained.  She couldn’t think about that at the moment, she had to get _out._ The ropes tying her to the metal chair were tied too intricately for her to slip out easily, but she might be able to find a way depending on what she had around her.  She started to look up on her own when a sharp tug at her hair pulled her head back.

“You couldn’t just leave well enough alone.  You had to go poking around and find us,” Ward snapped.

“What?  I ruin your grand plans or something?” Essie retorted as best as she could, probably a mistake to smart-talk her captive.  Ward let go of her hair and grabbed her by the jaw, making sure she looked up at him, directly into his crazed eyes and what he said made Essie taste bile in the back of her throat.

“ _Exactly.”_


	31. Closer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They exhausted themselves trying to find Essie, they were even willing to tell Tony where they were hiding. They didn't have a choice.
> 
> Essie's life was on the line.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry I took so long!! Between the holidays, classes, work, and all kinds of other stresses I got busy and it doesn't help that I get depressed during the winter. I'm so sorry.
> 
> I promise, no matter how long I go MIA I will never forget you guys!!
> 
> [1]-Essie's short hand for 'Hidden. Austria. Zugspitze. North Side. 8,000 feet high.'

# Chapter Thirty-One

### Closer

 

“Rumor has it you actually found your soulmate,” Ward taunted as he lazily dragged a knife along Essie’s cheek, “The crazy assassin that’s been trying to kill you for the last, what, 70 years?”

“Why the hell do you care?” Essie snorted, easily ignoring the pain in her cheek but the warm blood seeping out of the wound and down her cheek was harder to ignore, “You scared- _agh!”_

A loud slap resonated as Ward backhanded Essie on the same cheek he had just cut.  He glared down at Essie as he grabbed her throat and sneered, “Your boyfriend’s back on ice, everybody knows that, but I’m still pissed.  The bastard comes out of nowhere and beats the shit out of me, then he steals you away?  I can’t take it out on him, I can’t find him-“

“He’d snap your sorry ass in half.  You know I met him before the whole metal arm super soldier thing and he could have kicked your ass then too,” Essie laughed, high from blood loss before letting out a cry as Ward slammed his knife down through Essie’s hand.  She looked back up at Ward, her unwashed and bloodstained hair hanging in her face as her pale green eyes glared up at Ward and she sneered.

“I’d be more worried about what I’ll do to _you_.”

She had survived worse, she had _done_ worse, and she fully intended on killing the psychotic bastard, even if it was quick and painless.  That didn't mean she'd turn down the chance to turn the sick bastard inside out.

 

“ _Goddammit_!” Bucky growled as he sat forward and leaned against his knees as he rubbed his eyes.  They had been trying to figure out Essie’s chicken scratch and investigation notes for _hours_ and they had gotten nowhere.  Steve had even bit the bullet and had T’Challa give Tony their location, but T’Challa insisted that Tony stay under constant guard when he wasn’t with the former Avengers.  Tony would have complained under just about any other circumstance, and he certainly did shoot Bucky more than his fair share of glares, but he was trying to figure out the puzzle Essie had left behind.

“Essie figured this out, we can too,” Steve sighed heavily as he ran a tired hand through his uncharacteristically messy hair.

“Essie’s been at this as long as the rest of us put together,” Clint retorted as he slouched and tossed the file he was looking at onto Essie’s desk, “So unless you have the better part of a century’s worth of experience hidden somewhere, that whole ‘Essie did it we can too’ attitude isn’t going to help.”

“Hang on a second,” Tony sat up when he saw the folder and started flipping through this.  He recognized that chicken scratch, Essie had been writing his birthday cards in that same chicken scratch since he was a kid.  He might not know all of it but he knew enough.

“Hid. Aus. Zugspitze. N. Side. 8,000 ft. Up-“ Tony read it over, “Fucking _Austria_.  The Hydra psychopath took her to a mountain in _Austria_.” [1]

“It’s always _Austria,”_ Bucky muttered under his breath as he, and the others, got up and filed out of the office.

“T’Challa get us a jet there, Clint let’s suit up-“ Steve ordered.

“I’m going too,” Bucky cut in, “If we rush in there, bets are she’ll be killed on the spot.  We need to be quite and get right to her.”

“We can do it ourselves, what do you think Legolas is for?” Tony snapped, “You’re not coming.”

“I’m here to fly the jet and unless Nat shows up or Essie manages being in two places at once, Barnes is our best bet at sneaking in and getting Essie out of there alive.”

“We don’t have time for this!” Wanda snapped angrily, “We _all_ need to go, _now_!”

“But he-“

“I don’t care!” Wanda snapped again, her eyes watering as she angrily glared at the bickering men, “Essie could _die!_ Or _worse!_ ”

“I’d listen to the kid,” Clint looked directly at Tony as he led the way to the King’s armory that held their suits and weapons, “She’s still pissed about Ultron.”

Clint stopped and slowly shut his eyes as he realized what he had just done, looking back as Wanda kept her gaze down and Tony kept a constant gaze on the kid.  Tony wasn’t mad, unless you count being mad at himself, and this little wrinkle was certainly not something they needed.  This was exactly why they needed Essie around; she managed to keep these wrinkles from popping up and smoothed them out when they did.  Decades of simultaneously killing people and practicing diplomacy gives a girl some skills.

“And _I’m_ the bird brain,” Sam snorted as he shrugged his wings over his shoulders and adjusted them.

“You know, I’ve been trying to stay out of your little battle with Barnes but I think I’m gonna’ take his side _just_ for that,” Clint retorted as he made his way to the jet.

“That’s cold, man.”

 

Essie jumped awake when she heard the door slam open.  Ward had drugged her when he left the room, a ritual he had picked up after she was shot down after making an escape two days earlier.  She just had to hold on for a few more doses and she could fight her way through it.  She knew enough of the base and enough of her surroundings to at least make an escape.  She would have to find a way to survive this high in the mountain, or die trying, but frankly she’d rather be killed by a mountain than by this sick freak.  The thought she’d ever let him touch her made her retch.

“Your pretend nephew flew all the way to Wakanda after the country cut all ties and publicly denounced the Sokovia Accords.  Would there be any reason for that?” Ward interrogated as he circled around the chair Essie was kept chained to.  It was metal, he made sure of that, and there were far too many chains for her to make her way out of them before somebody noticed.

The pulse of hope in such a hopeless situation pulsed up through her like a big bubble making its way to the water’s surface and caused an inexplicable fit of laughter to pass through her lips before the blood made its way through her lungs and to her throat, making her cough and hack on it.  This was bad, her only hope was to break free and die in the snow.  That was the best fate she could hope for…

Disappearing in the mountain snow of Austria…


	32. Save The Hero

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They found her, all they had to do was rescue her.
> 
> If only things were that easy.

# Chapter Thirty-Two

### Save The Hero

 

“Remember the plan, stay hidden,” Steve ordered as Tony stood at the bay door to the Wakandan jet lowered to let Sam and Tony fly around the base and get a feeling of what they were dealing with, “Tell us what you see and give Bucky his opening, that’s it.”

At least Sam nodded before diving out of the jet but Tony just ignored Steve as the faceplate of his helmet sealed into place.  He stayed high, snapping at F.R.I.D.A.Y. every time she told him it would be easier if he flew in closer.  If he did that he’d risk being seen too soon, and he knew the stakes.

“Main entrance is to well-guarded, agents all over the first and second floors.  Next to nobody on the top floor but there’s five snipers on the roof,” Tony reported.

“Take them out, quietly,” Bucky ordered, “Drop me on the roof, I’ll let you know once I get to Essie, take over the rest of the base and pick us up on the ground, I don’t think she’ll be able to climb back up to the roof.”

“Care to share why?” Sam questioned, beating Tony to the punch and causing Bucky to recall Simmons’ explanation of the mark Bucky shared with Essie.

_"Every time you were put into cryogenic stasis Essie’s body was put in a type of stasis.  She was conscious and in control of her actions, she clearly lived her life, but she stopped aging, even her cycle stopped…”_

Stood to reason he was having dizzy spells because Essie was having dizzy spells, and then there were the aches and pains, he just knew his soulmate had been stabbed in her left hand by the fact that he felt it, despite his entire left arm from the shoulder down being made of metal.  None of that changed the fact he was their best bet at getting her back home, alive, and he’d make damn sure they did.

“He’s right, I can sense her,” Wanda said as she looked over the building, “She’s growing weaker.  We need to move quickly.”

Tony fired three shots at three of the snipers before Sam took out the last two, giving Bucky his opening to parachute to the roof, ditching the parachute early to keep the guards on the ground from seeing him in the cloudy white sky.  He rolled into his landing, keeping his gun up as he checked his surroundings for more soldiers before lowering his rifle and making his way to the roof entrance.  He grabbed the locked door handle with his metal arm and held tight as he pulled the door open, raising his rifle again as he snuck down the stairs and through the halls.

Then he heard it, a sound that sent pulse after pulse of rage through him, rage he had to force down as he kept his wits about him.  The familiar thud of a knife followed by a pained scream he recognized as Essie’s, despite never hearing it before.

“What are they doing?  What is he planning?” Ward snapped, interrupted by a few mumbles and followed by another thud and another scream.  Bucky picked up the pace but stopped when he saw the tripwire across the door.  He moved around it, carefully pushing the door open as he raised his rifle again and enjoyed the feeling of having Ward in his scope.  Essie looked up at him, of course she would notice him, and Ward noticed her smile before turning too late.

One shot was all it took.  They both wanted Ward to suffer, but Bucky wasn’t taking any risks with Essie’s safety.  One clean shot to the head and the nightmare was practically over.

“I’ve got Essie, Ward’s down,” Bucky said as he stepped over the tripwire and sped over to Essie, eventually resorting to ripping the weak padlocks off the thick chains keeping her held down.  Essie must have noticed the padlocks were your average padlock, something that could be worn down by being put through hard use on thick chains like the ones tied around her, the locks were already worn down and made it all the easier to rip them off.

" _How is she?”_ Tony asked, holding his breath.

“She’s bad, we need to make this quick and get her back to Wakanda _now_ ,” Bucky answered as he pulled the last lock off the chains.

“You’re awake,” Essie tried to smile, but she was too tired as she just fell forward and Bucky barely made his way around the chair and caught her before she hit the floor.  He gingerly picked her up and held her against his chest.

“Of course I’m awake, doll,” Bucky answered, as he held her close without hurting her, “I couldn’t get to sleep knowing my princess was mad at me.”

“Ugh, don’t call me that,” Essie groaned tiredly as she felt her eyes slipping shut.  She was so tired, and it was so hard not to-

“Hang on, doll, don’t pass out on me,” Bucky ordered as he carried her down the stairs, skidding to a halt when he was confronted with three agents, who soon found themselves the victim of a very angry, very powerful, witch.

“Let’s go, I’ll cover you!” Wanda turned to lead the way to the landing zone, easily clearing the way for the assassin and the injured agent as she just threw the enemies aside like paper dolls.  Bucky made a mad dash to the jet and the others followed soon after, Tony and Wanda cleaning up behind before joining the rest of the team and the jet took off.

“How’s she doing?” Steve asked, ignoring the black eye he had gotten from the butt of a gun.

“Hey doll…doll… _Essie,”_ Bucky called as he tried to shake the tattered woman awake, but nothing worked and to make matters worse he found himself fighting unconsciousness, “Pick up the pace Robin Hood!”

"Buck, you alright?" Steve noticed the new pale pallor that took over his childhood friend.

"Forget about me!  Essie's  __going to _die_ if we don't do something!" Bucky snapped.  He wasn't going to let Essie down like this.  He wouldn't be able to stand it, even in death.

“Her vitals are dropping fast!” Tony announced as he scanned the woman.

“I have an idea, move, _move!”_ Wanda pushed the others out of the way before placing her hands on Essie’s cheeks and holding them there.  She had honestly never thought of doing something like this before, and didn’t even know if she _could_ , but it was their only chance and she had to try.

It just needed to work until they could get back to Fitz and Simmons, and Wanda found herself silently praying.  She didn’t know who she was praying to, but she was praying as she tried to save her friend and Bucky stared down at Essie, frozen and the only expression on his face his clenched jaw and his blue eyes filled with terror.  The worst part was he wasn’t terrified for his own life; it would end if Essie’s did.  He was terrified entirely for Essie, which made it all the more heartbreaking.

_Please work.  Please, please work._


	33. Safe & Sound

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They're safe, in Wakanda, but things are still looking worse by the minute.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Full disclosure, I already have the ending planned. I didn't know if I wanted a really long chapter or a bunch of short ones and I decided on the shorter ones just because they're easier to read.
> 
> I'm hoping to get the last few chapters up before my break ends.

# Chapter Thirty-Three

### Safe & Sound

 

By the time they _finally_ got back to Wakanda, Bucky’s dizzy spells had stopped and Essie’s vitals had stabilized, but they were too panicked to ask just exactly what Wanda had done.  Essie was rushed onto a gurney and sped into an operating room with Simmons practically superglued to her side.  The rest of the team was checked out and stitched up by doctors before being left to their own devices.  They were free to ask what, exactly, Wanda had done.

“I put her in a dream.  I hoped if I locked her in a good dream she would be able to make it back, but I’m afraid what being locked in a dream too long could do to her,” Wanda answered.

“Five minutes fucked us all up enough, she’s been stuck in that dream for hours at least,” Tony sighed heavily.

"It saved her life,” Steve defended, “We were desperate for anything, maybe nothing will happen.”

“It’s more likely that she will forget…everything…” Wanda replied, honestly, “If she ever wakes up from the dream…”

“If she wakes up with amnesia she’s going back to New York.”

All eyes turned to Bucky, who had been leaning against the wall and looking out the window silently since the doctors had finished patching him up.

“You can’t be serious-“ Tony couldn’t believe it.

“It’s best for her to go back _now_ but she’ll never agree to it.  If she doesn’t remember she’s got a chance at another shot at life, and it’ll be a better shot if she goes back home,” Bucky pushed himself away from the wall and looked down at Tony, “If that happens, she’s going back and she’s living a _good_ life.”

“Barnes, you can’t make that decision-“ Clint interrupted, or tried to.

“And why the hell not?  It’s not a secret she’s here cause my ass got frozen,” Bucky snapped, “I fucked up her life, it’s _my_ job to give her a better one.”

Tony _really_ wanted to punch the bastard.  Not because he was doing something wrong, he was entirely keeping Essie’s well-being in mind and honestly Tony was thinking the exact same thing.  It was the fact that Tony agreed with what Bucky said so completely that pissed Tony off so much.

“Fine.  If it comes to that, I’ll take her back-“ Tony agreed, only to be cut off.

“She’s living a _normal_ life, with a _normal_ job.  She’s not getting mixed up in this mess again,” Bucky ordered, firmly.  It killed him to even think about sending Essie that far away, and that was the part he found the most ridiculous.  They barely knew each other, if it weren’t for these damn marks they were born with, Bucky would have been able to send Essie back off to New York without a second thought.  But all because of these marks that tied them together in ways nobody really understood, the simple thought of sending Essie to the opposite end of the Earth, even for her own well-being, made Bucky sick.  His only comfort was that it was, in fact, what was best for Essie.  Of course, there was the frighteningly overwhelming likelihood that Essie would _never_ wake up...

No matter what, Bucky had to keep her safe, even if it killed him.  He owed her that much.

 

“Where…where am I?” Essie asked as she looked around.  It was a peaceful place, walls lined in books and plenty of comfortable places to sit and read.  It was as close to a paradise as she could get, honestly.  So why did it seem so… _wrong_?

She tried the doors, all of them, and found no way out.  Every door just led to either another room filled with books, one room stocked with foods and wines, or a luxury bathroom.  It seemed so perfect, except for the fact that there was no way out.  She looked up at the windows, at _least_ 18 feet off the ground, but couldn’t figure out a way up there to see out of the windows.  There was no way to see outside, there was no way out...she was trapped.

“I guess I’ll just…sit here and wait here then…”


	34. What Hurts The Most

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everything worked out, it always worked out. It had to work out.
> 
> Didn't it?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Cascada version was the one I was listening to, but the Rascal Flats version is just as heartbreaking.

# Chapter Thirty-Four

### What Hurts The Most

 

Two weeks.  Two whole weeks of sitting around and waiting, and it was finally over.  Essie was finally well enough to be taken out of her medically induced coma and woken up.  They wanted to gather into her room, all of them, but the doctors practically kicked them out.  There were three visitors allowed in her room now.  Bucky, of course, Steve, and Tony were the only ones there to wait for Essie to wake up.  Wanda had long since taken Essie out of her dream state, but there was still no telling what state Essie would be in when she did wake up.

Over the last two weeks, Steve had tried convincing Bucky to change his mind, but Bucky stood firm.  If Essie did, in fact, wake up without her memories she was going back to New York with Tony.  They weren’t going to try to force her to remember everything, and they certainly weren’t going to force her to live the life she’s already been forced to live.  She was going to go back to New York and live a normal life.

“You’re asking us to _lie_ to her and pretend she’s just a civilian!” Steve argued.

“Then we lie to her!” Bucky snapped back, fiercely, as his stormy blue eyes glared at the American hero.  He wasn’t changing his mind, he was _never_ changing his mind.  It didn’t help that Tony agreed with the plan.  This validation, even if it was from Tony, only cemented Bucky’s decision.  It didn’t matter what _anyone_ said, their minds wouldn’t change.

Now, here it was.  The moment of truth.  Steve held his breath, it would work out in the end.  It had to.  It always did, even if it wasn’t in the most _ideal_ of ways.  It would all work out.  He hadn’t prayed in years, he still believed but he stopped counting on God after waking up after being frozen in ice.  He started counting on God again, if only to save both of his best friends.  He knew what it was like to lose your soulmate, having given up his chance with his soulmate, he knew just how much it hurt.  He didn’t want his friends to share the same fate.

They sat around Essie’s bed, just waiting, until her pale green eyes began to flutter open and she looked around.  Any second now she would shoot them a lazy, snarky, comment and everything would be back to normal.

“Where am I?” she asked as she slowly sat up, Bucky rushing to help her.

“Long story short, you’re in Wakanda, crashing in the king’s house,” Tony answered.

“What am I doing in _Wakanda_?” she questioned, even more confused than before.

“Do you know what your name is?” Steve asked, nervously.

“Esmeralda Faria, but everyone else calls me Essie.  I live in New York City with my mom and brothers,” Essie answered before asking, “I’m sorry, who are you guys?”

They looked away from Essie to look at each other before getting up and leaving the room without another word.

“She remembers her name, maybe she’ll remember more,” Steve urged.

“She’s got a century’s worth of memories, Steve.  I doubt it’s going to be any time soon,” Bucky pointed out.

“If at all,” Tony pointed out, “The chances of her recovering her memories are _slim_ at _best_.  The fact of the matter is most amnesiacs don’t recover their memories and Wanda said she likely won’t remember anything.  It’s a damn miracle she remembers her _name._ ”

“We can’t just give up-“

“It’s _over_ , Steve.  We’ll fill her in with enough to explain what happened to her family and give her some story about being in cryogenics or something, then she’s going back to New York,” Bucky snapped, before heaving a heavy sigh and leaning back against the wall as he ran tired hands through his hair.  He knew it.  He just fucking _knew_ it would all end in a big mess.  It was too much to ask his life turn out _right_ for a change.

Steve didn’t like it, but he accepted it as he crossed his arms across his chest and glared down at the ground ahead.  Tony heaved his own heavy sigh as he placed his hands on his hips.  He didn’t like the idea that had just crossed his mind but…but it was the least he could do.

“I’ll clear things with the UN, the Accords are already falling apart after losing Wakanda’s support.  After everyone finds out what happened to Essie it won’t take long for them to fall apart,” Tony said, almost sounding like he was just toying with the idea but it was far more than that, “Essie was right, there’s never one perfect solution to the world’s problems and everything we deal with is a hell of a lot more complicated than it already seems…”

“What are you staying, Stark?” Bucky asked.  He was too tired to be dealing with Stark’s shit right now.

“Pack your shit, we’re heading home.  All of us.”


	35. I'm Sorry That I Couldn't Get To You

# Chapter Thirty-Five

### I'm Sorry That I Couldn't Get To You

 

Bucky sat at the bar of the Avengers Tower.  He couldn’t get drunk, but the burn of the whiskey still had a sort of therapeutic effect on him.  He needed it, after everything.  His memories coming back, getting framed for bombing the UN and dragging Steve and Essie into his problems and causing a war between the Avengers, escaping to Wakanda, almost losing Essie to death only to lose her to her own lack of memories…

God, he wished he could get drunk.  He needed it.

"You did the right thing, you know,” Tony offered as he walked around to the back of the bar, pouring himself a drink.

“I’m 100 years old, Stark, I’m a little old for platitudes,” Bucky pointed out, tossing the rest of his whiskey back and missing the buz he used to get.

“Fair point,” Tony agreed before taking a swig of his scotch, “For what it’s worth, I promise not to kill you.”

“Because you tried already, and you failed,” Bucky pointed out.

"Yeah, cause Essie saved your ass,” Tony retorted.

“Yeah, that’s true,” Bucky agreed as he poured himself another drink, “How’s she doing?”

“Good.  She likes her job, likes her apartment, and she got a cat.  She always wanted one…she’s happy.”

Bucky nodded in acceptance, “Good.  That’s all that matters.”

 

Steve stepped out of the shower and wiped the steam off of the mirror before leaning against the bathroom counter and staring at his reflection.  He should have said something, if only to look for some support.  It had been bad enough losing Peggy, knowing his soulmate had lived out her life without him, but the pain of his mark disappearing.  It was worse than anything he had felt before, even the application of the serum.  It felt like it was burning deep into his _soul_ , all things considered it probably _did._

As… _childish_ as it seemed, Essie was the only one who would have an inkling about what Steve had gone through.  She patiently helped him adapt to the 21 st Century and teased him to keep him moving along.  Hell, it was because of her teasing he’d replaced _all_ of his ‘grandpa clothes.’  She was _most_ of the reason why he stayed with S.H.I.E.L.D. and why he kept his sanity through _everything_.  She was one of his best friends.

Now he lost her too.

 

It was a bit… _strange_ to be honest.  She adapted well to living in the 21 st Century, but it was still odd to think about sometimes.  Why would anyone want to kidnap _her_ and keep her frozen?  Of course, the Avengers seemed just as baffled at the thought, though Bucky seemed to have a few ideas based on his own experience.  Still, she was grateful to be free, even if she lost her entire family.  It was a new start at a new life, one where she didn’t have to steal and cheat to afford groceries or sprint through the streets at night just to avoid being molested or even raped just because her skin was a bit tanner and her hair was darker.  It was a new age, a better age, and holy shit was the internet just the _best_ fucking thing in the world?  Her boss’s teenage son had recently gotten Essie into video games as well.  God _damn_ were those things addicting.

Essie found a job at a family owned book store, a _large_ book store, and she fully enjoyed her days there.  The discount and ability to borrow books or sit and read during quiet days was absolutely fantastic.  She had a small apartment just down the street, enough room for her and her cat.

It was a good life, a simple life, and she enjoyed it.  She didn’t even feel the guilt of missing out on her soulmate.  She assumed he found someone else.

Why else would her mark have disappeared?


	36. AUTHOR'S NOTE: PLEASE READ

THERE WILL BE A SEQUEL!!

 

I know, I know, you probably don't like the ending for many reasons.  It's not happy, it ended so quickly, it seemed out of nowhere, I made you wait so long for that steaming pile, I know.  HOWEVER: there will be a sequel.  I'll try to get the sequel started as soon as possible, but school is starting up again after next week so please be patient.  I say that like you guys are anything but patient, you've been absolutely amazing.  Seriously, you guys kept me going.

 

I love you guys!! 


	37. SEQUEL IS COMING

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Updates regarding the sequel I promised after the final chapter. It's been so long I wanted to give an update on what to look out for.

# Update

 

Hello!!  I'm back to working on my Say Something series, and I've been considering actually putting it together in a series once I figure out a series name.  Anywho, the stall has been a result of 50 Million ideas and the consideration of waiting for Infinity War to see where the MCU takes things.  However, all of those ideas kind of require a story to connect things which left me with another two options: give Essie skills she didn't even have when she was an agent or take the risk of adding another OC.

Seeing as, as much as I adore Essie, she is no scientist and as canon characters wouldn't _exactly_ fit as well as I would like I have decided to bite the bullet and insert another OC.  For those of you who have read my Big Brown Eyes series, which is on a long-term hiatus as I've reached writer's block which hasn't wavered in the slightest, you'll remember the name Katrina Hazel Pierce.  I've revamped her character into Catrina Hazel Price, former S.H.I.E.L.D field scientist with multiple PhD's who picked up a research position at a _certain_ hospital.

Essie will be there, though she isn't the main character of this one (sorry, but there will be chapters featuring her) and there will be a progression of her story.  However, as this is going to be the connection between Say Something and where she is and where she is going during Infinity War, it's not something I can just skip over or glaze over in a chapter or two.  Also, the tone of the sequel will be a bit different, simply because of the plot and the characters involved.

 

So, for those of you so patiently looking forward to the continuation of the Say Something Saga (that probably won't be the series title) I will (hopefully soon) bring you the continuation: **New Perspective.**

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, the first paragraph and the summary are the same. I suck at summaries and I thought it worked.  
> A couple of notes, first being this is my first attempt at Soulmates but it's something I wanted to try. then I had this idea and it was too cute and had so much potential for a dramatic heart breaking story that I couldn't not write it.  
> Second, I probably don't need to mention this but back in the early 1900's and even the mid to late 1900's in some cases things were pretty fucked up when it came to racism and sexism. In the US we still don't have an Equal Rights Amendment and people, including house wives, were actively working against it as late as the 1970's and 1980's. The point of this rant is that especially in the early 1900's life for anyone in the US that wasn't white, male, and born in the US was difficult, and seeing as the main female protagonist is female and was born in Portugal before moving to the US when she was 6 things weren't exactly easy. They could have very easily been much, much worse but it was nothing like it is now.  
> Third, I'm a white girl living in bum-fuck-nowhere America so there are likely going to be inaccuracies but I'm also a nerd obsessed with research so I will strive to keep inaccuracies down to a minimum.


End file.
